At this moment he was looking across the square toward the post office. A large, broad-shouldered young man, with hair sun-bleached to a ruddy yellow, had alighted from a buggy and entered the office. He was a fine, bulky, upstanding farmer, built for enduring much hard labor in times of peace and for performing feats of arms in time of war. He looked like a fighter; he was a fighter--a willing fighter, and folks up and down the valley stepped aside if it was noised about that Abner Levens had broken loose. It was not that Abner delighted in the fruit of the vine nor the essence of the maize; he was a teetotaler. But it did seem as if nature had overdone the matter of providing him with the machinery for creating energy and had overlooked the safety valve. Wherefore Abner, once or twice a year, lost his temper. Now, losing his temper was not for Abner a matter of uttering a couple of oaths and of wrapping a hoe handle around a tree. He lost his temper thoroughly and seemed unable to locate it again for days. He rampaged. He roared up and down the valley, inviting one and all to step up and be demolished, which the inhabitants were very reluctant to do, for Abner worked upon his victims with thoroughness and enthusiasm. When Abner was in his normal humor he was a jovial, noisily jovial young man, who would dance with the girls until the cock tired of crowing; who would give a day's work to a friend; who performed his civic and religious duties punctiliously, if gayly; who was honest to the fraction of a penny; and who would have been the most popular and admired youth in the valley among the maidens of the valley had it not been for their constant, uneasy fear that he might suddenly turn Berserk. It was this young man whom Scattergood eyed thoughtfully, and, one might say, apprehensively, for Scattergood liked the youth and feared the germs of disaster that lay quiescent in his powerful body. Pliny Pickett lounged past, stopped, eyed Scattergood, and seated himself on the step. "Abner Levens 's in town," he said. "Seen him," answered Scattergood. "Calc'late Asa'll be in?" "Bein' 's it's Sattidy night, 'most likely he'll come." "Hope Abner's feelin' friendly, then," said Pliny with an anticipatory twinkle in his shrewd little gray eyes which gave direct contradiction to his words. "If Abner hain't feelin' jest cheerful them boys'll be wrastlin' all over town and pushin' down houses." "They hain't never fit yet," said Scattergood. "Nor won't if Asa has the say of it.... He's full as big as Abner, too. Otherwise they don't resemble twins none." "Hain't much brotherly feelin' betwixt 'em." "I hain't clear as to the rights of the matter," said Pliny, "but they hain't nothin' like a will dispute to make bad blood betwixt relatives.... Asa got the best of _that_ argument, anyhow. Don't seem fair, exactly, is my opinion, that Old Man Levens should up and discriminate betwixt them boys like he did--givin' Asa a hog's share."