Jimmy. "I
went last winter, and before, because whin they clamored too loud, I
could be drivin' out the divils that way, for a while, and you always
came for me, but even that won't be stopping it now. I wouldn't stick
my head out alone after dark, not if I was dying!"

"Jimmy, ye never felt that way before," said Dannie. "Tell me what
happened this summer to start ye."

"I've done a domn sight of faleing that you didn't know anything
about," answered Jimmy. "I could work it off at Casey's for a while,
but this summer things sort of came to a head, and I saw meself for
fair, and before God, Dannie, I didn't like me looks."

"Well, then, I like your looks," said Dannie. "Ye are the best company
I ever was in. Ye are the only mon I ever knew that I cared fra, and I
care fra ye so much, I havna the way to tell ye how much. You're
possessed with a damn fool idea, Jimmy, and ye got to shake it off.
Such a great-hearted, big mon as ye! I winna have it! There's the
dinner bell, and richt glad I am of it!"

That afternoon when pumpkin gathering was over and Jimmy had invited
Mary out to separate the "punk" from the pumpkins, there was a
wagon-load of good ones above what they would need for their use.
Dannie proposed to take them to town and sell them. To his amazement
Jimmy refused to go along.

"I told you this morning that Casey wasn't calling me at prisent," he
said, "and whin I am not called I'd best not answer. I have promised
Mary to top the onions and bury the cilery, and murder the bates."

"Do what wi' the beets?" inquired the puzzled Dannie.

"Kill thim! Kill thim stone dead. I'm too tinder-hearted to be burying
anything but a dead bate, Dannie. That's a thousand years old, but
laugh, like I knew you would, old Ramphirinkus! No, thank you, I don't
go to town!"

Then Dannie was scared. "He's going to be dreadfully seek or go mad,"
he said.

So he drove to the village, sold the pumpkins, filled Mary's order for
groceries, and then went to the doctor, and told him of Jimmy's latest
developments.

"It is the drink," said that worthy disciple of Esculapius. "It's the
drink! In time it makes a fool sodden and a bright man mad. Few men
have sufficient brains to go crazy. Jimmy has. He must stop the drink."

On the street, Dannie encountered Father Michael. The priest stopped
him to shake hands.

"How's Mary Malone?" he asked.

"She is quite well noo," answered Dannie, "but she is na happy. I live
so close