ity on
three legs amazed the earth. He ran yelping to Mrs. Grinnell, nearly
overturning her in his turbulent demand for sympathy; then scampered
across to the boys, who readily enough stopped their work to examine the
wounded member and condole with its wheezing proprietor.

"What ye mean, A'gusta?" Grinnell said at length. "Kase I 'lowed I'd cut
thar ears? I ain't foolin', Kem meddlin' about remarkin' on our chill'n
agin, I'll show 'em."

Augusta looked at him in exasperation. "I ain't keerin' ef all the
Purdees war deef," she remarked, inhumanly, "but what war them words ye
sent fur a message ter Purdee?--'bout pridin' on what ain't theirn."

Grinnell in his turn looked at her--but dubiously, However much a man
is under the domination of his wife, he is seldom wholly frank. It is in
this wise that his individuality is preserved to him. "I war jes
wantin' ter know ef them words war on the rocks," he said with a
disingenuousness worthy of a higher culture.

She received this with distrust. "I kin tell ye now--they ain't," she
said, discriminatingly; "Pur-dee's words don't sound like _them_."

"Waal, now, what's the differ?" he demanded, with an indignation natural
enough to aspiring humanity detecting a slur upon one's literary style.

"Waal--" she paused as she knelt down to feed the fire, holding-the
fragrant chips in her hand; the flame flickered out and lighted up her
reflective eyes while she endeavored to express the distinction she
felt: "Purdee's words don't sound ter me like the words of a man sech ez
men be."

Grinnell wrinkled his brows, trying to follow her here.

"They sound ter me like the words spoke in a dream--the pernouncings
of a vision." Mrs. Grinnell fancied that she too had a gift of Biblical
phraseology. "They sound ter me like things I hearn whenst I war
a-hungered arter righteousness an' seekin' religion, an' bided alone in
the wilderness a-waitin' o' the Sperit."

"'Gusta!" suddenly exclaimed her husband, with the cadence of amazed
conviction, "ye b'lieve the lie o' that critter, an' that he reads the
words o' the Lord on the rock!"

She looked up a little startled. She had been unconscious of the
circuitous approaches of credence, and shared his astonishment in the
conclusion.

"Waal, sir!" he said, more hurt and cast down than one would have deemed
possible. "I'm willin' ter hev it so. I'm jes nuthin' but a sinner an' a
fool, ripenin' fur damnation, an' he air a saint o' the year