est. She took lessons in that
respect for two years over at Birdstail. I wouldn't trust the buying
of an instrument to anybody else but myself. I reckon if I hadn't took
up sheep-raising I'd have been one of the finest composers or piano-
and-organ manufacturers in the world.'

"That was Uncle Cal's style. But I never lost any patience with him,
on account of his thinking so much of Marilla. And she thought just as
much of him. He sent her to the academy over at Birdstail for two
years when it took nearly every pound of wool to pay the expenses.

"Along about Tuesday Uncle Cal put out for San Antone on the last
wagonload of wool. Marilla's uncle Ben, who lived in Birdstail, come
over and stayed at the ranch while Uncle Cal was gone.

"It was ninety miles to San Antone, and forty to the nearest railroad-
station, so Uncle Cal was gone about four days. I was over at the
Double-Elm when he came rolling back one evening about sundown. And up
there in the wagon, sure enough, was a piano or a organ--we couldn't
tell which--all wrapped up in woolsacks, with a wagon-sheet tied over
it in case of rain. And out skips Marilla, hollering, 'Oh, oh!' with
her eyes shining and her hair a-flying. 'Dad--dad,' she sings out,
'have you brought it--have you brought it?'--and it right there before
her eyes, as women will do.

"'Finest piano in San Antone,' says Uncle Cal, waving his hand, proud.
'Genuine rosewood, and the finest, loudest tone you ever listened to.
I heard the storekeeper play it, and I took it on the spot and paid
cash down.'

"Me and Ben and Uncle Cal and a Mexican lifted it out of the wagon and
carried it in the house and set it in a corner. It was one of them
upright instruments, and not very heavy or very big.

"And then all of a sudden Uncle Cal flops over and says he's mighty
sick. He's got a high fever, and he complains of his lungs. He gets
into bed, while me and Ben goes out to unhitch and put the horses in
the pasture, and Marilla flies around to get Uncle Cal something hot
to drink. But first she puts both arms on that piano and hugs it with
a soft kind of a smile, like you see kids doing with their Christmas
toys.

"When I came in from the pasture, Marilla was in the room where the
piano was. I could see by the strings and woolsacks on the floor that
she had had it unwrapped. But now she was tying the wagon-sheet over
it again, and there was a kind of solemn, whitish look on her face.

"'Ain't wrapping