By this time old Jasper's jaw had fallen, and now he sat, leaning forward with his mouth wide open. "Zeby," he said, and his voice sounded as if he had been taken with a sudden hoarseness. "I reckon I am about as fond of a joke and a prank as any man that ever crossed Goose Creek--and some great jokers came along there in the early days--but there was things too sacred for them to joke about. You know what I said, Zeby?" "I know all about them old fellows," Zeb said, with a laugh. "I have heard my granddad talk about them. In fact, he was one of them, and I get it from him not to joke on some things. I've that bottle of liquor in my pocket this very minute." The old man stepped to the door. "Tobithy; oh, Tobithy." "Well," his wife answered from the dining-room. "Zeb is powerful anxious for you to go over to his mother's, as the old lady is wanting to see you, but I don't see how you can get off." Sawyer looked at him in surprise. The old man made him a sign to be quiet. A dish clattered and his wife exclaimed: "You don't see how I can go. Oh, no, but you see how I can stick here day after day, killing myself with work. I am going." The old man grinned and sat down. "I was afraid she would back out," he said, "and I wanted to clinch the thing. Jest let me tell her that I am afraid she can't do a thing and then it would take a good deal more high water than we've had for a year or two to keep her from doing it." His wife and Annie came into the room and he put on a sober air. "I don't think you can stay late, for it looks like rain," he said. [Illustration: talking in the kitchen] "I'm going to stay until I get ready to come back, and it can rain brick bats for all I care," she replied; and the old man, knowing that everything was fixed, leaned back with a long breath of contentment. The women soon took their departure; the old man watched them until they passed through a gate that opened out upon the sidewalk, then he looked at Sawyer and said: "The bottle; I believe you 'lowed you had it with you." "Right here," Sawyer replied, tapping a side pocket of his coat.