"Some friends of mine and Sammy's. I wonder what made the little imps bolt like that. They usually sit on that back fence till every bit of language is used up. Why, they hadn't got more than started and Sammy here hadn't even begun. What ailed you, Sammy?" "Oh, I rather think I frightened them," said Frank's assistant. "But I think that before long they will feel enough at home with me to come and sit on my back fence." Sammy was left to clear up while the men went back to work. Both hammers were merrily ringing when old man Vingie strolled by and stopped to visit. He went on presently but before he was out of sight Bill Trumbull and Old Peter Endby came up. There was a worried look in Bill's large florid face and the light of utter unbelief in Peter's eye. They both laid their arms neighbor fashion along the fence and watched the toilers silently for a few seconds. Then Peter spoke up in grieved tones: "Seems like you might have asked old neighbors to give you a hand, Frank. I had no notion you was in any such turrible hurry to start this here new chicken house of yourn. It don't look respectable or kindly, you acting that way, neglecting to tell old neighbors--" "It's a slander on this here neighborhood, that's whot it is, Frank," Bill Trumbull complained. "Here's Peter and me both old-time carpenters, full of energy and advice and ripe years and experience, and you don't drop so much as a hint. Why, I remember the time when we put up barns with wooden pegs and durn good barns they were and are, for there's some of them still standing as strong as the day they were built. There's the Churchill barn. That's our work, Peter's and mine. Seems you've forgotten considerable, Frank. Why, your father wouldn't have thought of starting a chicken house without first talking it over with us." When they had passed on, Bill supporting Peter's left elbow so's to case the rheumatism in his partner's left knee, Frank turned amazed eyes to his assistant. "Now what in time," he wanted to know, "is the matter with those two precious old lunatics? Why, Pap Trumbull and Dad Endby are both over eighty. Dad's so twisted with rheumatism that he couldn't bend to pick up his pipe if he dropped it. And Pap's got asthma so bad that it's all he can do to draw his breath on the installment plan. Why, I've never consulted them in all my born days though I always let them come over and criticize my work to their heart's content. But something's eating them to-day." "Perhaps they're surprised at seeing me, a comparative stranger here, helping you. They may even be a bit jealous, you know." Frank's assistant volunteered this explanation wonderingly as if he too were puzzled about something.