at some ploughshares in a
pile on the floor, till he come at me again.

"'But you _would_ sell him, wouldn't you?' he asked.

"'Well,' I said, slowlike, as if I had some difficulty in recalling
exactly what we'd been talking about, 'I had sorter thought that a good
mule would do the work I have to do better than a hoss.'

"'What would you take for him?' Wilks come at me again, and he looked
kinder anxious. 'I want a hoss to send out to my plantation. They are
needing one about like yours.'

"'It will take a hundred and fifty of any man's money to buy him,' I
says. 'Friend nor foe don't get him for a cent less.'

"Well, we went out to the hoss, and Wilks got astraddle of him, and,
sir, he took him round the square in the purtiest rack you ever saw
shuffle under a saddle. I saw Wilks thought I was his game, for his eyes
was dancing as he lit and hitched.

"'How would a hundred and forty strike you, cash down?' he said.

"'I'm needing the other ten,' I said. 'I'm a one-price man. I know what
I've got in that hoss' (and you bet I did), 'and you can take him or
leave him. I didn't start the talk, nohow.'

"'Well, we won't fight over the ten,' he said, 'but here is one
trouble, Alf. You are under age, and I don't often trade with minors. I
don't know how your daddy may look at it, and I'm going to make this
deal before witnesses so there won't be any trouble later.'

"'You'll not have any trouble with Pa,' says I. 'I'll guarantee that.'

"Well, Wilks called up two of his clerks to see the money handed to me,
and with the wad of bills in my pocket I lit out for home. But the
nearer I got to the house the more I got afraid Pa wouldn't endorse what
I'd done, and so I felt sorter funny when him and Ma met me at the gate,
their eyes wide open in curiosity to know what I'd done.

"'Well, what did you do with the hoss?' Pa wanted to know.

"'I sold him,' says I. 'I let him go to Tobe Wilks for cash.'

"'Cash the devil,' says Pa. 'How much?'

"I drawed out my roll and fluttered the bills in the wind. 'A hundred
and fifty,' I said. 'If I'd asked less he'd have been suspicious and
backed out.'

"Well, sir, Pa was plumb flabbergasted. He leaned against the gate-post
and puffed for air, and Ma was the same way. But he wouldn't touch the
money. 'It's plain open-and-shut stealing,' he said, when he riz to the
surface, 'and we are simply going to hitch a hoss to the buggy and take
the money back.'

"Well, it looked like i