heeks and their curly hair; somehow, curly hair doos
set off anybody's face. He is n't any foreigner, for all that he talks
Italian with that Mr. Paul that's his help. He looks just like our
kind of folks, the college kind, that's brought up among books, and is
handling 'em, and reading of 'em, and making of 'em, as like as not, all
their lives. All that you say about his riding the mad colt is just what
I should think he was up to, for he's as spry as a squirrel; you ought
to see him go over that fence, as I did once. I don't believe there's
any harm in that young gentleman,--I don't care what people say. I
suppose he likes this place just as other people like it, and cares more
for walking in the woods and paddling about in the water than he doos
for company; and if he doos, whose business is it, I should like to
know?"

The third of the speakers was Miranda, who had her own way of judging
people.

"I never see him but two or three times," Miranda said. "I should like
to have waited on him, and got a chance to look stiddy at him when he
was eatin' his vittles. That 's the time to watch folks, when their jaws
get a-goin' and their eyes are on what's afore 'em. Do you remember that
chap the sheriff come and took away when we kep' tahvern? Eleven year
ago it was, come nex' Thanksgivin' time. A mighty grand gentleman from
the City he set up for. I watched him, and I watched him. Says I, I
don't believe you're no gentleman, says I. He eat with his knife, and
that ain't the way city folks eats. Every time I handed him anything
I looked closeter and closeter. Them whiskers never grooved on them
cheeks, says I to myself. Them 's paper collars, says I. That dimun in
your shirt-front hain't got no life to it, says I. I don't believe it's
nothin' more 'n a bit o' winderglass. So says I to Pushee, 'You jes'
step out and get the sheriff to come in and take a look at that chap.'
I knowed he was after a fellah. He come right in, an' he goes up to the
chap. 'Why, Bill,' says he, 'I'm mighty glad to see yer. We've had the
hole in the wall you got out of mended, and I want your company to
come and look at the old place,' says he, and he pulls out a couple of
handcuffs and has 'em on his wrists in less than no time, an' off
they goes together! I know one thing about that young gentleman,
anyhow,--there ain't no better judge of what's good eatin' than he is.
I cooked him some maccaroni myself one day, and he sends word to me by
that Mr