ndow?"

"Aunt Stanshy herself. I saw her with my own eyes."

"You did?"

"Yes. You see--there, I don't know but I'm telling a secret--but then you
won't say any thing."

Having made this prudent remark, and not waiting for any promise from
Charlie, Simes, who dearly loved to tell a thing, and especially any thing
that might astonish a hearer, began his story.

"You see, Tim Tyler is your Aunt Stanshy's second cousin."

"Tim's father?" said Charlie, in astonishment.

"You mean young Tim Tyler's father? Ginerally old Tim is young Tim's
father, sartin as the sea is father of our river. But this old Tim is
young Tim's uncle. Then you didn't know it? Well, you are young, and I
spose nobody told you. Well, Stanshy and old Tim were brought up side by
side in this neighborhood and were good as chickens to one another. Some
folks say they'd been better friends still, if their parents hadn't set
their faces agin it, and so they were never married to one another. They
were never married at all. Did you ever see old Tim?"

"I don't know as ever I saw old Tim, but then I've seen _that_ boy, and he
is rough," said Charlie, recalling the afternoon of the Fourth.

"Tim Tyler don't live in this part of the town, and it's no wonder you
never saw him. He hardly ever comes down this way now, though he often did
once. Well, the wust lookin' old drunkard you ever see about town, spot
him for Tim."

"Then I guess I have seen him," remarked Charlie, recalling the drunkard
he had watched the afternoon of his severe sickness, and remembering, too,
Aunt Stanshy's singular conduct.

"Tim looks poorly enough now, but it wasn't so once. Straight and smart,
and bright as the blades of a new jack-knife, was Tim. His face was
blushin' like a posy, and his beard was long and handsome, like Moses the
prophet's. He was nice as a pictur till rum got the better of him, and
then he changed, I tell ye. For many years he had the privilege of fishin'
from this barn. From the stairs on the 'tother side of that door, he would
get down into his fishin' boat in the dock. He would bring his fish in
here, split 'em and prepare 'em for market. Sometimes Stanshy kept a horse
and cow below, and then Tim would hist his fare into the upper window and
clean his fish there. But one day Aunt Stanshy cleaned him out, and when
Stanshy starts on a cleanin' tour, she makes thorough work of it, and puts
things through promptly. And she did clean out old Tim! But I mus