tatoes into an equal number of
"bites," so that they would "come out even." If you were careful and
counted right, the thing could be done every time.

And for the first time in all his years he asked for more pie. Of course
this was anarchy. He knew well enough that one piece of pie is the
heaven-allotted portion; that no one, even partly a Bunker, should crave
beyond it; yet this fatuous old pair seemed to invite just that
licentiousness, and they watched him with doting eyes while he swaggered
through his second helping.

If more had been needed to show the Beanish lowness, it would have come
after the first supper, for Gramper and Grammer sat out on a little
vine-covered porch and smoked cob-pipes which they refilled at intervals
from a sack of tobacco passed companionably back and forth. His own
father was supposed to smoke but once a week, on Sunday, and then a
cigar such as even a male Bunker might reputably burn. But a _pipe_, and
between the lips of Grammer! She managed it with deftness and exhaled
clouds of smoke into the still air of evening with a relish most painful
to her amazed descendant. Yet she inspired him with an unholy ambition.

Asked the next day about the habit of smoking, Gramper said it was a bad
habit; that it stunted people and shortened their days. Both he and
Grammer were victims and warnings. Grammer had lumbago sometimes so you
wouldn't hardly believe any one could suffer that way and live. As for
Gramper himself, he had a cough brought on by tobacco that would carry
him off dead one of these days; yes, sir, just like that! And then, to
point his warning, Gramper coughed falsely. Even to the unpractised ear
of his grandson the cough did not ring true. It lacked poignance.

Late that afternoon, when both the old ones slept, he abstracted a pipe,
stuffed it with the rich black flakes and fled with matches to a nook of
charming secrecy in the midst of the lilac clump. Thence arose presently
clouds of smoke from the strongest tobacco money could buy.

At last he had dared something that didn't hurt him. He puffed
valiantly, blowing out the smoke even as Grammer had done. Up to a
certain moment his exaltation was intense, his scared soul expanding to
greater deeds.

Then he coughed rather alarmingly. But that was to be expected. He drew
in another breath of the stuff and coughed again. It was an honest
cough; no doubt about that. Perhaps Gramper's cough had been honest.
Perhaps the pipe