d?"

"Dunno."

"Look here, Napoleon Lively: you've got to stop your everlasting
talking. Your chatter, chatter, chatter just tries me to death. I'm
not--"

Here Dr. Lively, overcome with the absurdity of this charge, did
a very unusual thing. He broke into laughter so prolonged and
overwhelming that Mrs. Lively, after some signal failures to edge in
a word of explanation, left the table in the midst of the uproar and
dashed up stairs, where she jerked and pounded the beds with a will.

The next day Mrs. Lively was canning some cherries which the doctor
had taken in pay for a prescription. The air was filled with the
mingled odor of the boiling fruit and of burning sealing-wax. The cans
were acting with outrageous perversity, for they were second-hand and
the covers ill-fitting. Her blood was almost up to fainting heat, and
she was worried all over. She had to do all her preserving in a
pint cup, as she expressed it in her contempt for the diminutive
proportions of the saucepan which she was using.

"Here 'tis," said Napoleon, suddenly appearing at the kitchen-door.

"Here what is?" demanded Mrs. Lively shortly, without looking up. Her
two hands were engaged--one in pressing the cover on a can, the other
in pouring wax where a bubble persistently appeared.

"This," answered Napoleon.

"What?"

"Purse."

"Purse!" she screamed. "Is the money in it?" She dropped her work and
took eager possession of it. "Where did you find it?"

"Big apple tree," replied Napoleon.

"Under the apple tree?"

"Fork," was the lad's emendation.

"Why in the name of sense do you have to bite off all your sentences?
They are like a chicken with its head off. Do you mean to say that you
found the purse in the fork of the big apple tree?"

"Do; and pipe."

"Pipe! of course. One might track your father through a howling
wilderness by the pipes he'd leave at every half mile. Don't let him
know you've found the purse, and to-morrow morning I'm going to see
if I can't have some of his bills paid before the money is lost, as it
would be if he should get it in his hands."

The next morning Mrs. Lively felt under her pillow, as on a former
occasion, and, as on that former occasion, found the purse where she
had put it the night before. She gave it into Napoleon's hands after
breakfast, and despatched him to settle the bills. In less than half
an hour he was back.

"Did you pay all the bills?" she asked.

"No."

"How many?"

"