and next day I bought the candy route and the
hoss and waggin! All the candies, lozenges, and peppermint drops;
tutti-frutti and pepsin chewin'-gum; peanut toffy and purity kisses;
wholesale and retail, Calvin Parks agent, that's me!"

He brought his chair down on four legs and towered once more in the
doorway. "There's the first chapter of my orter-biography, Miss Hands
and boys," he said. "I must be off now, or I sha'n't get over my route
to-day."

CHAPTER IV

THE CANDY ROUTE

"Hossy," said Calvin as he drove out of the yard, "what do you think of
that young woman?"

(Mary Sands was nearer forty than thirty, but she will be young at
seventy.) The brown horse shook his head slightly as Calvin flicked the
whip past his ear.

"Well, there you're mistaken!" said Calvin. "There's where you show your
ignorance, hossy. I tell you that young woman is A 1 and clipper built
if ever I see such. Yes, sir! ship-shape and Bristol fashion, live-oak
frame, and copper fastenin's, is what I call Miss Hands, and a singular
name she's got. Most prob'ly she'll be changin' it to Sill one of these
days, and one of them two lobsters will be a darned lucky feller. I
wonder which she'll take. I wonder why in Tunkett she should want either
one of 'em. I wonder--hello!"

[Illustration: "CALVIN REGARDED THEM BENEVOLENTLY."]

He checked the brown horse. A small boy was standing on a gate-post and
shouting vigorously.

"What say, sonny?" said Calvin.

"Be you the candy man?" cried the child.

"That's what! be you the candy boy? lozenges, tutti-frutti and pepsin
chewin' gum, chocolate creams, stick candy--what'll you have, young
feller?"

"I want a stick of checkerberry!" said the boy.

"So do I!" cried a little girl in a pink gingham frock, who had run out
from the house and climbed on the other gate-post. She was a pretty
curly little creature, and the boy was an engaging compound of flaxen
hair, freckles and snub nose. Calvin regarded them benevolently, and
pulled out a drawer under the seat of the wagon.

"Here you are!" he said, taking out a glass jar full of enchanting red
and white sticks.

"Best checkerberry in the State of Maine; cent apiece!" and he held out
two sticks.

The children's eyes grew big and tragic. "We ain't got any money!" said
the boy, sadly.

"Not _any_ money!" echoed the little girl.

"Then what in time did you ask for it for?" asked Calvin rather
irritably.

"I didn't!" said the boy. "I