g I knew, 'twould be supper."

Humming a hymn he took another dish from the ice-chest and placed
it beside the mackerel plate.

"What's that?" inquired Barbara.

"That? Oh, that's my toppin'-off layer. That's a rice puddin',
poor man's puddin', some folks call it. I cal'late your ma'd call
it a man's poor puddin', but it makes good enough ballast for a
craft like me." He began singing again.

"'I know not, yea, I know not
What bliss awaits me there.
Di, doo de di di doo de--'"

Breaking off to suggest: "Better stay and eat along with me to-day,
hadn't you, Babbie?"

Barbara tried hard not to seem superior.

"Thank you," she said, "but I guess I can't. We're going to have
chicken and lemon jelly." Then, remembering her manners, she
added: "We'd be awful glad if you'd have dinner with us, Mr.
Winslow."

Jed shook his head.

"Much obliged," he drawled, "but if I didn't eat that mackerel, who
would?"

The question was answered promptly. While Mr. Winslow and his
small caller were chatting concerning the former's dinner, another
eager personality was taking a marked interest in a portion of that
dinner. Cherub, the Taylor cat, abroad on a foraging expedition,
had scented from his perch upon a nearby fence a delicious and
appetizing odor. Following his nose, literally, Cherub descended
from the fence and advanced, sniffing as he came. The odor was
fish, fresh fish. Cherub's green eyes blazed, his advance became
crafty, strategical, determined. He crept to the Winslow back
step, he looked up through the open door, he saw the mackerel upon
its plate on the top of the ice-chest.

"If I didn't eat that mackerel," drawled Jed, "who would?"

There was a swoop through the air, a scream from Barbara, a crash--
two crashes, a momentary glimpse of a brindle cat with a mackerel
crosswise in its mouth and the ends dragging on the ground, a
rattle of claws on the fence. Then Jed and his visitor were left
to gaze upon a broken plate on the floor, an overturned bowl on top
of the ice-chest, and a lumpy rivulet of rice pudding trickling to
the floor.

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" cried Barbara, wringing her hands in consternation.

Jed surveyed the ruin of the "poor man's pudding" and gazed
thoughtfully at the top of the fence over which the marauder had
disappeared.

"Hum," he mused. "H-u-u-m. . . . Well, I did cal'late I could get
a meal out of sight pretty fast myself, but--but--I ain't in tha