e quick. He possessed the strong common sense of his
class; his wife had been like him in this respect, and her influence
had intensified the trait. Queer people with abnormal manners excited
his intense aversion. The most charitable view that he could take of
Mrs. Mumpson was that her mind--such as she had--was unbalanced, that
it was an impossibility for her to see any subject or duty in a
sensible light or its right proportions.

Her course, so prejudicial to her own interests, and her incessant and
stilted talk, were proof to his mind of a certain degree of insanity,
and he had heard that people in this condition often united to their
unnatural ways a wonderful degree of cunning. Her child was almost as
uncanny as herself and gave him a shivering sense of discomfort
whenever he caught her small, greenish eyes fixed upon him.

"Yet, she'll be the only one who'll earn her salt. I don't see how I'm
going to stand 'em--I don't, indeed, but suppose I'll have to for three
months, or else sell out and clear out."

By the time he reached town a cold rain had set in. He went at once to
the intelligence office, but could obtain no girl for Mrs. Mumpson to
"superintend," nor any certain promise of one. He did not much care,
for he felt that the new plan was not going to work. Having bartered
all his eggs for groceries, he sold the old stove and bought a new one,
then drew from the bank a little ready money. Since his butter was so
inferior, he took it to his friend Tom Watterly, the keeper of the
poorhouse.

Prosperous Tom slapped his old friend on the back and said, "You look
awfully glum and chopfallen, Jim. Come now, don't look at the world as
if it was made of tar, pitch, and turpentine. I know your luck's been
hard, but you make it a sight harder by being so set in all your ways.
You think there's no place to live on God's earth but that old
up-and-down-hill farm of yours that I wouldn't take as a gift. Why,
man alive, there's a dozen things you can turn your hand to; but if you
will stay there, do as other men do. Pick out a smart, handy woman
that can make butter yaller as gold, that'll bring gold, and not such
limpsy-slimsy, ghostly-looking stuff as you've brought me. Bein' it's
you, I'll take it and give as much for it as I'd pay for better, but
you can't run your old ranch in this fashion."

"I know it, Tom," replied Holcroft ruefully. "I'm all at sea; but, as
you say, I'm set in my ways, and I'd ra