"Been around these times three months. Scared stiff at first. Thought I was addled. Know somethin'? I can remember all the way back to 1870. It's a fake, sure. No, they didn't make me look young, or even give me all my teeth. Afraid of spoiling 'verisimilitude,' my great-great-great-something-grandson-supposed-to-be said. I'm a family brag. Look what I keep carrying around with me. One of the first editions of _Huck Finn_. They found this tintype of a feller inside it. Illinois farmer. And look at this here writing in the front of the book. 'Property of Abel Freeman.' So I'm supposed to be him, slouch hat and all--funny, I can't get used to anything else. So I write just like that. This tintype and the writing are the only solid clues about what the original Abel Freeman was really like. Up to there, I'm him. The rest is mostly storybook stuff, and the idea the family has that their ancestor was a kind of pixilated hellion--the sort some folks like to tell about. Some way for a man to be born, huh? Shucks, I can even remember the night I was supposed to have died. Drunk, and kicked in the belly by my own mule, because he didn't like my smell. Hell, I bet in real life that mule would of plum enjoyed whisky!" Abel Freeman stopped talking. He turned pale gray eyes set in a face that looked like brown leather toward his audience with expectant amusement, as if he understood the eerie impression he'd made on them and was curious about their reactions. Barbara took the lead. "We're surely glad to know you, Mr. Freeman," she said, shaking his big brown paw and unconsciously aping his manner of speech. "I'm sure you could tell us plum more. What's the world ever coming to?" His grip, for an instant, was almost literally like that of a vise. But when Barbara winced with pain, his hand relaxed, and his look became honestly gentle and apologetic, though it retained a certain slyness of tricks being played or unprecedented power being demonstrated. "Oh, excuse me, lady!" he drawled. "This first Abel Freeman--he was supposed to be a very strong and vigorous man. Me--naturally I'm even a lot stronger. Sometimes I just forget. But I try to be right courtly. There, I'll rub your fingers. Hope I didn't break no bones." Barbara laughed a bit nervously. "No, Mr. Freeman--I'm fine," she assured him, nodding her dark head. "Now, if you'll tell us--"