s that agin?' says Jedwort.

"I told him.

"'Wal, _she's_ a mighty nice-lookin' gal!'

"'Yes,' says I, she takes after her mother.'

"Little Willie, now eight years old, came out of the woodshed with a
bow-and-arrow in his hand, and stared like an owl, hearing his father
talk.

"'What boy is that?' says Jedwort. And when I told him, he muttered,
'He's an ugly-looking brat!'

"'He's more like his father,' says I.

"The truth is, Willie was such a fine boy the old man was afraid to
praise him, for fear I'd say of him, as I'd said of the girls, that he
favored his mother.

"Susie ran back and gave the alarm; and then out came mother, and Maria
with her baby in her arms, for I forgot to tell you that we had been
married now nigh on to two years.

"Well, the women folks were as much astonished as I had been when
Jedwort first spoke, and a good deal more delighted. They drew him into
the house; and I am bound to say he behaved remarkably well. He kept
looking at his wife, and his children, and his grandchild, and the new
paper on the walls, and the new furniture, and now and then asking a
question or making a remark.

"'It all comes back to me now,' says he at last. 'I thought I was living
in the moon, with a superior race of human bein's; and this is the
place, and you are the people.'

"It wasn't more than a couple of days before he began to pry around, and
find fault, and grumble at the expense; and I saw there was danger of
things relapsing into something like their former condition. So I took
him one side, and talked to him.

"'Jedwort,' says I, 'you're like a man raised from the grave. You was
the same as buried to your neighbors, and now they come and look at you
as they would at a dead man come to life. To you, it's like coming into
a new world, and I'll leave it to you now, if you don't rather like the
change from the old state of things to what you see around you to-day.
You've seen how the family affairs go on--how pleasant everything is,
and how we all enjoy ourselves. You hear the piano, and like it; you see
your children sought after and respected, your wife in finer health and
spirits than you've ever known her since the day she was married; you
see industry and neatness everywhere on the premises; and you're a beast
if you don't like all that. In short, you see that our management is a
great deal better than yours; and that we beat you even in the matter of
economy. Now, what I want to know is