“I know,” Peterson replied. “I used to size Miss Ethel up that way down home among the other girls; but this morning, when me'n her strolled down to the spring, it looked to me as if she didn't want to talk about anything but books--an' books that I've never heard about to boot. She had a thick one under her arm and I peeped in it. I think it was by Cato--no, that is the name of your stable-boy, isn't it? Oh, yes, now I remember; it was Plato, Plato. He was one of the old-time fellows, wasn't he--before the Revolution, anyway?” “Hanged if I know.” Hoag shrugged his shoulders as if the question were a disagreeable incubus suddenly fastened upon him. “I don't know any more'n a rabbit. I set one night an' listened to Paul Rundel an' her talkin' on the veranda an' I hardly understood one word in five. That fellow is the damnedest chap I ever run across.” “Is he the man you told me about coming home to give himself up?” “Yes; an' I've had 'im managin' for me ever since. He's a wheel-hoss. He's doubled my income; he's as keen as a brier; knows how to manage laborin' men. They think the sun rises an' sets in 'im. He don't indorse no church in particular, an' yet the women say he's religious. Men that was too triflin' to draw the breath o' life under me work like puffin' steam-engines for him.” “And he sits around at odd times and talks books?” Peterson said, a faultfinding frown on his face. “That's the way he seems to get his relaxation,” Hoag returned. “Well, I don't care how religious he is. Sometimes that helps. I had a little crossroads store away back in my early day an' I didn't have time to manage it. I kept hirin' fellows to run it, an' every one I got would soak me--steal money an' goods so thar wasn't a sign o' profit. But one day a misfit parson come along. He had failed to make good. He was tongue-tied an' he stuttered so bad that he made the mourners laugh an' had to quit preachin'. I gave him the job, an' it was the best deal I ever made. The fellow was so honest that he wouldn't use a postage-stamp for any private purpose, or take a chaw o' tobacco, without enterin' it on his account. He kept a big Bible on the counter, an' so many o' his sort hung around that the store looked like a Salvation headquarters; but the gang bought plenty o' goods an' paid cash. I never forgot that experience, an' when I saw the kind o' man Paul had got to be I raked 'im in.” “You say he--sometimes talks to Miss Ethel?” Peterson asked, the flicker of vague rebellion in his eyes. “Oh yes,” Hoag answered, indifferently. “She's been powerfully worried over Jennie's death, an' Paul, somehow, seems to brace her up with his odd views in regard to a happy land. Maybe”--Hoag hesitated, and then pursued more confidently--“maybe if you sorter talked a little on that line yourself it would catch her fancy. Anything is fair in love an' war when a woman is clean upset like Eth' is.”