answer in some way, and, with a curious sort of
reluctance, he said slowly, "Yes--I suppose--I'm sure you would."

This seemed to satisfy Uncle Jabez, and he went on with his story:

"I came home from town one stormy night, about six months after she
died, pretty well beat out,--entirely so, I may say. I'd been drivin'
some cattle into the city, and I'd had only a poor concern of a boy to
help me. The cattle was contrai-ry,--contrai-rier'n common; and I
remember thinkin', when the feller at the drove-yard handed me my check,
that I'd earned it pretty hard. That's the last about it I do remember.
I s'pose I must 'a' put it in my pocket-book, the same as usual; but I
rode home in a sort of a maze, I was so tired and drowsy, and I'd barely
sense enough to eat my supper and grease my boots afore I went to bed. I
had a bill to pay the next day, and I opened my pocket-book, quite
confident, to take out the check. It wasn't there. I always kep' a
number of papers in that pocket-book, and I thought at fust it had got
mislaid among 'em: so I turned everything out, and unfolded 'em one by
one, and poked my finger through a hole between the leather and the
linin', and made it a good deal bigger,--but that's neither here nor
there,--and before I was through I was certain sure of one thing,---
that wherever else that check was, it wasn't in that pocket-book. Then I
tried my pockets, one after the other,--four in my coat, four in my
overcoat, three in my vest, two in my pants: no, it wasn't in any of
them, and I begun to feel pretty queer, I can tell you. It was my only
sale of cattle for the season; I was dependin' on it to pay a bill and
buy one or two things for Gracie; and, anyhow, it's no fun to lose a
hunderd-dollar check and feel as if it must have been bewitched away
from you. I rode back to the drove-yard, though I wasn't more'n half
rested from the day before, and they said they'd stop payment on the
check and give me a chance to look right good for it, and if I couldn't
find it they'd draw me another. You see, they knowed me right well, and
they wasn't afraid I was tryin' to play any sort of a game on 'em.
Still, it wasn't a pleasant thing to have happen, for, say the best you
could of it, it argued that I'd lost a considerable share of my wits.
So, when I come home, I felt so kind of worried and down-hearted that I
couldn't half eat my supper; and that worried Gracie,--she was a
thin-skinned little critter, and if I didn