But the Somerton customers regarded the general subject from a different standpoint, for Grace surprised some of them with pictures taken, without their knowledge, of themselves in their wagons, or in front of their houses, or on the way to church. They were not of high quality; but as the best the natives had previously seen were some dreadful tintypes perpetrated annually by a man who frequented county fairs, they were doubly satisfactory, for she would not accept pay for them. She surprised herself, also, sometimes beyond expression, by some of her failures, which were quite as dreadful as anything she had dreamed after almost stepping on snakes--people without heads, or with hands larger than their bodies, or with other faces superimposed upon their own. She also made the full quantity and variety of other blunders peculiar to amateurs, and she stained her finger-tips so deeply that Philip pretended to suspect her of the cigarette habit; but she persisted until she succeeded in getting some pictures which she was not ashamed to send to her aunt and to some of her acquaintances in the city. Caleb, who endeavored to master everything mechanical and technical that came within his view, took so great interest in the camera, even begging permission to see the developing process, that Philip one day said to him:-- "Caleb, if your interest in that plaything continues, I shan't be surprised if some day I hear you advance the theory that even photography is a means of grace," and Caleb cheerily replied:-- "Like enough, for anythin's a means o' grace, if you know how to use it right." "Even snakes?" Grace asked, with a smile that was checked by a shudder. "Of course. The principal use o' snakes, so far as I can see, is to scare lots o' people almost to death, once in a while, an' a good scare is the only way o' makin' some people see the error o' their ways." "H'm!" said Philip. "That's rather rough on my wife, eh?" "Oh, no," said Caleb. "Some folks--mentionin' no names, an' hopin' no offence'll be took, as I once read somewhere--some folks are so all-fired nice, an' good, an' lucky, an' pretty much everythin' else that's right, that I do believe they need to be scared 'most to death once in a while, just to remind 'em how much they've got to be thankful for, an' how sweet it is to live." Grace blushed, and said:-- "Thank you, Caleb; but if you're right, I'm afraid I'm doomed to see snakes frequently for the remainder of my natural life." "Speakin' o' snakes as a means o' grace," said Caleb, "p'r'aps 'twould int'rest you to know that some awful drunkards in this county was converted by snakes. Yes'm; snakes in their boots scared them drunkards into the kingdom." "In--their--boots?" murmured Grace, with a wild stare. "How utterly dreadful! I didn't suppose that the crawling things--" "Your education in idioms hasn't been completed, my dear," said Philip. "'Snakes in their boots' is Westernese for delirium tremens."