a'am,' says I, 'if you say the word
I shall at once proceed to get my fiery, untamed skees and go
gallopin' over the mountains to make you the fourteenth Mrs.
Scraggs with all speed and celery possible. You have only to speak
to turn this dreadful uncertainty into a horrible fact. I pay for
what I break; that's me, Jo Bush.'

"'Well, ain't this suddent!' she says. 'But I'll not stop ye from
yer intentions--men is that set in their ways! Run along, now,
loike a good choild!'

"'Well, good-by, William!' I says when we started, 'You see how it
is yourself!"

"He cried on my coat collar. I honest believe that grass-juice had
a jump or two in it, so darned insijous a man wouldn't notice.

"'To think it was me brought this on,' he hollers. 'Me an' my
revengeful nature! You try to forgive me, Ezekiel. And we
everlastingly did wind up that mill, anyhow!'

"'William,' says I, 'take no heed. No man is above what happens to
him, unless like he'd been atop of the mill when she dispersed. I
forgive you--good-by.'"

Mr. Scraggs puffed his pipe thoughtfully. "Thirteen," he
ruminated, and shook his head. "Tell me not them mournful numbers."

"But," interrupted Charley, "I don't see as you was any worse off
than before?"

"Me?" replied Mr. Scraggs in surprise. "Me? No, _I_ wasn't any
worse off. But, as I said before, inquire of the snake.

"Mrs. Mehitabel Thirteenth Scraggs opened up on me a few mornings
after that, and my latest acquisition instantly laid hold of her by
the hair of her head and beat her with a fryin'-pan till Number
Thirteen had to take to her feet and stay that way for a week.

"'You _will_ talk to my ol' man like that, will _you_?' says
Bridget. 'Well, mind you this, now! If he nades batin' _I'll_
bate him, but fur anny skimpy, yaller critter like yerself to so
much as give him a sassy look I'll construe as a mortial offense.
Run along, now, run along, and git him his breakfas', or I'll
strangle ye with me foot!'

[Illustration: "You _will_ talk to my ol' man like that, will
_you_?"]

"No," said Mr. Scraggs, sadly. "I wasn't no worse off. If so it
hadn't 'a' been Bridget took a drop too much at the drug-store one
night, and another drop too much over the edge of the canon on the
way home, I reckon I'd had some good out of life. But it wasn't to
be, it wasn't to be. Drowned in the bud by the inflooence of that
cussed unlucky number, thirteen."

VI

MR. SCRAGGS INTERVENES