The task of redding up the Augean stables was slight in comparison, one might believe, to judge from her show of horror now and then, and there was considerable difference between the size of Sis and of Hercules. She had succeeded in reaching some sense of culinary propriety in Joe, or pride, for he now and again became sufficiently still to look poutingly sullen, and to ejaculate, "'Tain't true!" "'Twarn't!" and similar disaffected negations. "I l'arnt all that whenst I lived with my granny," she concluded her exposition of the true methods of dealing with the trivet and the skillet and setting the house in order. "An' when we war done, we'd knit stockings an' tell tales." "Tales 'bout what?" asked Larrabee, seeking to conciliate her, for he began to have a shrewd suspicion that she could aid him if she would. His interest was the more easily simulated, for he had a literary taste himself. "Oh," she cried, with a little bounce forward, not unlike Joe's elasticity, "them in gineral we-uns hearn the rider read,--'bout Sam'l." "I hev read 'bout Sam'l," said Larrabee quickly, with an air of playing willingly to her lead; and indeed she had struck him on his strong suit. "An' old Eli. Eli war an able man, but he never 'peared ter me ter hev much jedgmint." "I jes' _lo-o-oved_ ter hear 'bout leetle Sam'l an' his mother, an' her a-bringin' of him new clothes. He wore a white shut, an' she brung him a leetle coat every year," continued Sis, with placid eyes shining with the delighted reminiscence of the little prophet's fine gear. "Eli never could hev led the children of Isrul through the wilderness like Moses done," said Larrabee meditatively, reverting naturally to the elder character; whereas with Sis the _personnel_ of the Bible was chiefly juvenile, rarely attaining a greater height than four feet. "Jes' ter think," she cried, "they put Moses whenst a baby in a leetle dug-out, an' anchored him 'mongst the willows under the ruver bank, an' lef' him by hisself! Don't ye know, he hollered an' hollered! An' he wondered whar all the folks war gone." "An' Dan'l I hev read about," continued Larrabee. "In the painters' den! Oo--oo!" The little girl shivered with a sort of enjoyment of the terror of the situation, drawing up her shoulders, and holding both hands over her mouth. "He warn't 'feared. I reckon he mus' hev been a powerful hunter whenst young. I wonder ef he ever hed enny 'speriunce with wolf an' bar, an' sech?" Larrabee speculated. "Them bars! Warn't that awful,--plumb turrible!" exclaimed Sis suddenly, her scanty brows knitted as she frowningly recoiled into the back of her chair, and her small eyes grew large. "Them two bars what eat them forty childern,--though 'tain't manners, an' it never war, ter make game o' yer elders." "'Tain't true! No two bar ever eat forty childern. They'd hev bust!" Joe interposed realistically. "Sis jes' made that up out'n her own head."