"Do you think it fair to keep all the fun to yourself, you selfish scamp? Don't you know that things to laugh at are dismally scarce at this season of the year? As the boys say when another boy finds something, 'Halves.'" "Well," said Caleb, "the fact is, some of the customers was scared to death, Black Sam says, for fear they'd catch cold after the bath. I'd expected as much of some of our G. A. R. boys,--mentionin' no names,--so I'd took down to the house a dozen sets o' thin underclothin' that I'd ordered on suspicion. I always wear it--I learned the trick from one of our hospital doctors in the army, an' it gives me so much comfort that I talked it up to other men, but 'twas a new idee 'round here, an' ev'rybody laughed at me. The baths, though, scared a lot o' the boys into tryin' it. All day long they were kind o' wonderin', out loud, whether it was the cleanin' up or the underclothes that made 'em feel so much better'n usual; so I says to 'em, 'What's the matter with both? No one thing's ev'rythin', unless mebbe it's religion, an' even that loses its holt if you squat down with it an' don't do nothin' else.' 'But,' says some of 'em, 'what's to be did when the underclothes gets dirty?' 'Put on some clean ones,' says I, 'or wash the old ones overnight, 'fore you go to bed--that's what I done ev'ry night, when I was so poor that I couldn't afford a change.' Well, some of 'em'll do it, 'cause they're too poor to buy, but you'd better telegraph for a stock o' them thin goods; for when they don't find thick shirts an' pants stickin' to 'em all day, while they're at work, they'll be so glad o' the change that they'll want to stock up. They'll find out, as I've always b'lieved, that underclothes, an' plenty of 'em, is a means o' grace." "More business for the store, as usual," said Philip. "Yes," said Caleb, "but 'twon't be a patch to the run there'd be on ice-cream machines--if there was plenty of ice to be had. Some o' the boys from the farmin' district stopped with me last night, thinkin' it was better to get some sleep 'fore sun-up than go out home an' wake their folks up halfway between midnight and daylight, to say nothin' o' scarin' all the dogs o' the county into barkin', and tirin' out hosses that's got a day's work before 'em. Well, 'fore turnin' in, they said lots o' nice things--though no nicer than they ought--about the way they had been treated at your house, an' 'bout the way you both acted, as if you an' them had been cut from the same piece, but--" "Don't make me conceited, Caleb." "I won't; for, as I was goin' to say, they come back ev'ry time to the friz milk, as they called it, an' how they wished their wives knew how to make it, an' what a pity 'twas there wa'n't ice-houses all over the county. Well--partly with an eye to business, knowin' that most any of 'em could stand the price of a freezer, an' the others could do it, too, if they'd save the price o' liquor they drink in a month or two--I says:--