just said I wanted it."

Calvin looked from him to the girl, and then at the candy,
helplessly.

"Well, look here!" he said. "Say! where do hossy and me come in? We've
got to get our livin', you see."

"Could you get much living out of two sticks?" asked the little girl.

Calvin looked again at the round wistful eyes.

"This ain't no kind of way to do business!" he remonstrated. "You've got
to airn it some way, you know. Tell you what! Let me see which can
holler loudest, and I'll give you a stick apiece."

The babes closed their eyes, threw back their heads, and bellowed to the
skies.

"That's first rate!" said Calvin. "Good lung power there, young uns! go
it again!"

The children roared like infant bulls of Bashan. At this moment the door
of the house flew open and a woman appeared wild-eyed.

"What's the matter?" she cried. "Susy, be you hurt? Eben, has something
bit you?"

"Don't you be scairt, Marm!" said Calvin affably. "They was just showin'
off their lung power, and they've got a first rate article of it."

The woman's eyes flashed, and she hurried toward the gate. "You come
along and be spanked!" she cried to the children; "scarin' me into
palpitations, and your Aunt Mandy layin' in a blue ager! And as for
you," she addressed Calvin directly, "the best thing you can do is to
get out of this the quickest you know how. When I want peddlers round
here I'll let you know."

The children were hurried into the house, shrieking now in good earnest,
but clutching their candy sticks. Calvin gazed after them ruefully.

"Well, hossy, that didn't seem to work real good, did it?" he said.
"Fact is, we ain't got the hang of this business, no way, shape or
manner. Try to please the kids and you get 'em a spankin' instead. Well,
they got their candy anyway. 'Pears as if their Ma needed somethin',
howsomever."

He sat pondering with his eyes fixed anxiously on the house; finally he
rummaged among his drawers, and taking out a small package, he climbed
laboriously out over the wheel, and making his way up to the house,
knocked at the door. The woman opened it with a bounce, and snorted when
she saw him.

Calvin bent toward her confidentially, his face full of serious anxiety.

"Say, lady!" he said gravely; "I'd like to make you a present of these
cardamom seeds. They do say they're the best thing goin' for the temper;
kind o' counter-irritant, y' know; bite the tongue, and--"

The door banged in his face. H