; but it was Judy's only infirmity, she added, very charitably.

Of course girls did not generally have such business opportunities as
these, and it was Gideon's opinion that she was "considerable of a girl,
anyhow." It must be confessed that Aunt Esther was a little anxious, and
the minister expressed a doubtful hope that she would not prove "a
corrupting influence." Gideon told Grazella all his business plans,
which Phemie never cared to listen to. It was after tea one evening, and
he and Grazella were sitting on the orchard wall, while Phemie and
little Adoniram shook the old damson-plum-tree. He told her of the
contract he had made with the owners of the canning factory at Bayberry
Port, to supply them with berries for the whole season, and, what he
wouldn't tell any fellow, of the great find he had made--a blackberry
thicket over on the other side of Doughnut Hill, almost an acre, and the
berries just beginning to ripen! He was going to sell the plums off his
trees, too, and, later on, his crab-apples, he'd got a business opening,
she'd better believe.

Grazella's eyes snapped, and her thin, sallow cheeks reddened suddenly.
"You'd ought to have a partner!" she cried.

Gideon shook his head doubtfully. "It's awful risky takin' partners," he
said. "If they ain't smart, you have to do all the work; if they are,
they are apt to cheat you."

"Jicksy!" suggested Grazella, wistfully, breathlessly. "I--I've got a
job for him up here--a little one; I didn't tell, because I was afraid
your aunt wouldn't ask me to stay another week if she knew; she's scairt
of me, and I expect she'd be scairter of Jicksy." (The country-week
girl's eyes were sharp.) "Mr. Snell, across the field, said he'd give
him his board to help him take care of his cattle, and I heard they were
wanting a boy to blow the organ in church. It wouldn't suit Jicksy to
throw away his talents workin' for his board; but he's crazy for the
country, and the doctor said 'twould be the makin' of him, account of
his heart beatin' too fast, and whatever he has to eat he always thinks
it enough to go 'round amongst a dozen that's poorer than him. He could
blow the organ, for when he belonged to the show he blew up the fat
man--all the ingy-rubber fixin's that made him fat, you know, every day:
and once he worked for a balloon-man. But if you'd take him for a
partner in your business--"

Grazella's eyes were so anxious that Gideon found it hard to shake his
head with