“an' they all look a leetle cross. I like t' pass the time o' day with ev'ry man I meet, but mighty Dinah! they's so many of 'em!—there ain't no use tryin' t' be pleasant. I got t' showin' the whites o' my eyes as bad as any of 'em.” He spoke, laughingly, of a symphony concert to which we had taken him. “I'll never fergit the man with a p'inter,” he said, his head noddin with amusement. “How he could toss the music! It was like spreadin' hay.” Again his cheery voice, after a moment of silence: “No more meat! Hope Brower, if you don't eat yer dinner, you'll be put to bed.” After dinner I gathered up my tackle. “I dunno,” Uncle Eb remarked. “Great day for fishing,” I insisted. The team arrived, a lively pair of Morgan mares. Uncle Eb came out 8027 of the house in rubber boots, with his overcoat upon his arm. “I'm 'fraid you better not go,” said Elizabeth Brower from the door-step, with a look of anxiety, and now the trembling of his hands made me almost regret that I had tempted him. “See here,” said Uncle Eb, firmly, as he turned to my mother. “He's picked on me 'til I can't stan' it any longer. Ye couldn't keep me out o' that buggy with a gun.” I helped him in and took my place at his side, and away we went a pace of twelve miles to the hour, through town, across the flat, and up the stairway of the hills. We passed the old Hosper homestead. “What's become of the deacon?” I asked. “Dead; got sick o' life. Wouldn't 8028 eat or take any medicine; kind o' pined away.” “What was the trouble?” “Wal, ye know, he had to live with himself,” said Uncle Eb, “an' he wa'n'. what ye might call good comp'ny. He couldn't help it, an' I always felt kind o' sorry fer Hosper. They got him so scairt over there at the white church that he was 'fraid to live an' 'fraid to die, an' fer a long time he didn't do either. He thought it was his duty to suffer. God had cursed the world, an' that was the reason why men had to sweat an' toil. Think o' his days—full o' fear an' repentence an' atonement an' hell an' ancient history. He kind o' straddled his span o' life. One foot was in the future an' the other in the past. No wonder he had the rheumatiz. Nobody liked him. He got to 8029 be a lonesome, sickly ol' man, I went to see him one day. Says I: “'Deacon, I wouldn't wonder if the fish 'u'd bite.' “'Fish!' says he, 'my mind ain't on fish. I'm thinkin' o' my immortal soul.' “'Man's soul is like his stummick,' says I. 'It ain't healthy 'less he can fergit it. Come an' have some fun.'.rdquo; We rode in silence until Uncle Eb went on: “He seemed to think that God was a kind of a bully, an' that he loved to make men cowards. It don't seem likely to me. I don't b'lieve He meant toil fer a curse nuther. I couldn't be happy 'less I had suthin' to do. Seems 's 'o' them who wrote down the plans o' the Almighty made a mistake now an' then, an' it ain't no wonder if they 8030