ney.

"Of course you do. Everybody does now. But he wa'n't such a prophet in
Israel then as he's come to be since, and folks wa'n't acquainted with
his personal beauties.

"'What are you starin' at?' he asks.

"I fetched a long breath. 'Nothin',' says I. 'Nothin'.'

"But for the rest of that next ha'f hour I went around in a kind of
daze, as if MY wig had gone and part of my head with it. When a feller
has been doin' a puzzle it kind of satisfies him to find out the answer.
And I'd done my puzzle.

"I knew where I'd met Mr. Williams afore."

"You did?" cried Simeon.

"Um-hm. Wait a while. Well, Fatty went to bed, in one of the hay bunks,
pretty soon after that. He stripped to his underclothes and turned in
under the patchwork comforters. He was too beat out to want any supper,
even if there'd been any in sight. I built a fire in the rusty cook
stove and dried his duds and mine. Then I set down in the busted chair
and begun to think. After a spell I got up and took account of stock, as
you might say, of the eatables in the shanty. Darius had carted off his
own grub and what there was on hand was mine, left over from the gunnin'
season--a hunk of salt pork in the pickle tub, some corn meal in a tin
pail, some musty white flour in another pail, a little coffee, a little
sugar and salt, and a can of condensed milk. I took these things out of
the locker they was in, looked 'em over, put 'em back again and sprung
the padlock. Then I put the key into my pocket and went back to my chair
to do some more thinkin'.

"Next mornin' I was up early and when the banker turned out I was fryin'
a couple of slices of the pork and had some coffee b'ilin'. Likewise
there was a pan of johnnycake in the oven. The wind had gone down
consider'ble, but 'twas foggy and thick again, which was a pleasin'
state of things for yours truly.

"Williams smelt the cookin' almost afore he got his eyes open.

"'Hurry up with that breakfast,' he says to me. 'I'm hungry as a wolf.'

"I didn't say nothin' then; just went ahead with my cookin'. He got into
his clothes and went outdoor. Pretty soon he comes back, cussin' the
weather.

"'See here, Mr. Williams,' says I, 'how about them orders to your
housekeeper? Are they straight? Won't she have you hunted up for a
week?'

"He colored pretty red, but from what he said I made out that she
wouldn't. I gathered that him and the old lady wa'n't real chummy. She
give him his grub and her services, an