g, and went off upstairs to look at the
two rooms that were to be occupied by Uncle Ike and poor Allie.

CHAPTER XII.

LOOKING FOR A BOARDING PLACE.

When Quincy awoke in his room at the hotel on the morning after the
accident he found to his great surprise that it was nine o'clock. He
arose and dressed quickly, and after a light breakfast started off
towards Uncle Ike's. Reaching the house he was astonished at the sight
that met his gaze. Everything was out of place. The bed was down and the
bedding tied up in bundles; the books had been taken from the bookcase
and had been piled up on the table. There was no fire in the stove, and
the funnel was laid upon the top of it. Quincy had remembered that he
had seen a pile of soot on the ground near the steps as he came up them.
All of Uncle Ike's cooking utensils were packed in a soap box which
stood near the stove.

"What's the matter, Mr. Pettengill, are you going to move?" asked
Quincy.

"For a time at least," replied Uncle Ike. "'Zeke Pettengill's sister has
been struck blind and he is going to bring her down home this afternoon
and I am going to live with them and be company for her. I always
thought as much of Alice as if she was my own daughter, and now she is
in trouble, her old uncle isn't going back on her. It isn't Ike
Pettengill's way."

"Have you seen 'Zekiel Pettengill this morning?" asked Quincy.

"No, nor I didn't expect to," replied Uncle Ike. "I suppose he went to
Boston on the nine o'clock train and will be back on the three o'clock
express."

"Mr. Pettengill," said Quincy, "can you give me fifteen minutes' time
for a talk?"

"Well," said Uncle Ike, looking at his watch, "it will be half an hour
before Cobb's twins will be down here with the team, and I might as well
listen to you as sit around and do nothing. They are coming down again
by and by to get the chickens. I have a good mind to set the house on
fire and burn it up. If I don't, I suppose some tramp will, and if I
need another house like it, thank the Lord I've got money enough to
build it."

"No, don't burn it up, Mr. Pettengill," said Quincy. "Let it to me. I am
around looking for a boarding place myself."

"Why, what's the matter, what made you leave Deacon Mason's?"

"That's what I want to tell you," said Quincy. "Time is limited and I'll
make my story short, but you are a friend of my father's, and I want you
to understand the whole business."

"Why, what have you be