' short, twins an' singles,--Jed
Morrill had observed dryly: "Yes, Mis' Grant kind o' reminds me of
charity."

"How's that?" inquired Uncle Bart.

"She beareth all things," chuckled Jed.

"Aaron Boynton was, indeed, a man of most adhesive larnin'," agreed
Timothy, who had the reputation of the largest and most unusual
vocabulary in Edgewood. "Next to Jacob Cochrane I should say Aaron had
more grandeloquence as an orator than any man we've ever had in these
parts. It don't seem's if Ivory was goin' to take after his father that
way. The little feller, now, is smart's a whip, an' could talk the tail
off a brass monkey."

"Yes, but Rodman ain't no kin to the Boyntons," Abel reminded him. "He
inhails from the other side o' the house."

"That's so; well, Ivory does, for certain, an' takes after his mother,
right enough, for she hain't spoken a dozen words in as many years, I
guess. Ivory's got a sight o' book-knowledge, though, an' they do say he
could talk Greek an' Latin both, if we had any of 'em in the community
to converse with. I've never paid no intention to the dead languages,
bein' so ocker-pied with other studies."

"Why do they call 'em the dead languages, Tim?" asked Rish Bixby.

"Because all them that ever spoke 'em has perished off the face o' the
land," Timothy answered oracularly. "Dead an' gone they be, lock, stock,
an' barrel; yet there was a time when Latins an' Crustaceans an' Hebrews
an' Prooshians an' Australians an' Simesians was chatterin' away in
their own tongues, an' so pow'ful that they was wallopin' the whole
earth, you might say."

"I bet yer they never tried to wallop these here United States,"
interpolated Bill Dunham from the dark corner by the molasses hogs-head.

"Is Ivory in here?" The door opened and Rodman Boynton appeared on the
threshold.

"No, sonny, Ivory ain't been in this evening," replied Ezra Simms. "I hope
there ain't nothin' the matter over to your house?"

"No, nothing particular," the boy answered hesitatingly; "only Aunt
Boynton don't seem so well as common and I can't find Ivory anywhere."

"Come along with me; I'll help you look for him an' then I'll go as fur
as the lane with yer if we don't find him." And kindly Rish Bixby took
the boy's hand and left the store.

"Mis' Boynton had a spell, I guess!" suggested the storekeeper, peering
through the door into the darkness. "'T ain't like Ivory to be out
nights and leave her to Rod."

"She don't have no spel