put up to him. So Mr. Came owes Mr. Simpson money and won't
pay it, and Mr. Simpson said he'd send over a child and board part of it
out, and take the rest in stock--a pig or a calf or something."

"That's all stuff and nonsense," exclaimed Miranda; "nothin' in the
world but store-talk. You git a clump o' men-folks settin' round
Watson's stove, or out on the bench at the door, an' they'll make up
stories as fast as their tongues can wag. The man don't live that's
smart enough to cheat Abner Simpson in a trade, and who ever heard of
anybody's owin' him money? Tain't supposable that a woman like Mrs. Came
would allow her husband to be in debt to a man like Abner Simpson. It's
a sight likelier that she heard that Mrs. Simpson was ailin' and sent
for the boy so as to help the family along. She always had Mrs. Simpson
to wash for her once a month, if you remember Jane?"

There are some facts so shrouded in obscurity that the most skillful and
patient investigator cannot drag them into the light of day. There are
also (but only occasionally) certain motives, acts, speeches, lines of
conduct, that can never be wholly and satisfactorily explained, even in
a village post-office or on the loafers' bench outside the tavern door.

Cassius Came was a close man, close of mouth and close of purse; and all
that Riverboro ever knew as to the three months' visit of the Simpson
twin was that it actually occurred. Elisha, otherwise Nimbi-Pamby, came;
Nimbi-Pamby stayed; and Nimbi-Pamby, when he finally rejoined his own
domestic circle, did not go empty-handed (so to speak), for he was
accompanied on his homeward travels by a large, red, bony, somewhat
truculent cow, who was tied on behind the wagon, and who made the
journey a lively and eventful one by her total lack of desire to proceed
over the road from Edgewood to Acreville. But that, the cow's tale,
belongs to another time and place, and the coward's tale must come
first; for Elisha Simpson was held to be sadly lacking in the manly
quality of courage.

It was the new minister's wife who called Nimbi-Pamby the Little
Prophet. His full name was Elisha Jeremiah Simpson, but one seldom heard
it at full length, since, if he escaped the ignominy of Nimbi-Pamby,
Lishe was quite enough for an urchin just in his first trousers and
those assumed somewhat prematurely. He was "Lishe," therefore, to the
village, but the Little Prophet to the young minister's wife.

Rebecca could see the Cames