“Other times I think you are a dummed fool. You can take your pick. Now I am goin’ out to associate with some one that ain’t tryin’ to pick my pocket the whole dog-blessed time nor spreadin’ on hair-oil talk when it ain’t called for.” He trudged out to the barn where Imogene was spending the winter in dignified ease, occupying a corner of the building that had been sheathed and boarded for her comfort. Here “Figger-Four” Avery tended a little air-tight stove, relegated to the post of menial. Hiram sat in silent communion with Imogene until the dusk came down. Once in a while he fed to her a lump of candy. Each time she curved down her trunk he poked a thick finger against it roguishly. “I’ll bet ye know who sent ’em to ye--now, don’t ye?” he would chuckle, when Imogene gazed down on him with amiable blinkings. CHAPTER XVII--WHAT DEVELOPED AT THE FORUM IN ASA BRICKETT’S STORE, TO AN OBBLIGATO BY LOOK’S CORNET BRASS BAND “Always a seat for another, Providin’ we squeeze ’em tight; Stampin’ in from the smother, For ’tis snowin’ hard to-night. Time for a bit o’ smokin’, Time for another tale, Time for a little jokin’, Waitin’ here for the mail.” --Ballad of “The Grocery Store.” I think there’s more git-up and ginger in a fife and drum,” said Uncle Lysimachus Buck. He had cocked his ear to listen. Then he held his cane beside his lips and fingered imaginary stops. The windows of Hobbs’s hall, across the street from Asa Brickett’s store, shed their yellow gleams out upon the crisp winter night. A band rehearsal was going on there. The loafers who hovered about the stove in the store could hear the voice of the leader haranguing his men, then the robust attack on the tune--bass horns bellowing “oomp-pah oomps,” cornets blaring and clarinets wailing; then the false note, the wavering in the melody and the sharp command of a voice, at which the music shredded out into jargon and ceased. More harangue and away they all went again from the start! “If the dummed calves ever git so they can play a whole piece to once it will be wuth while list’nin’,” growled Marriner Amazeen, settling down once more to his whittling, after he had cocked his ear for a time. “Near’s I can find out, Hime ain’t lettin’ ’em practise nothin’ but them high-diddle-diddle circus tunes,” observed Uncle Buck. “Now, you take a fife and drum in ‘The Girl I Left Behind Me,’ or a good fiddler in ‘The Devil’s Dream’ or ‘Miss McCloud’s Reel,’ or even an accordion in ‘Alice, Where Be Ye?’ and, by swanny, you’ve got the real old ear-ticklers. But this squeaky-weaky, biff, bang, boom stuff ain’t music no more’n poundin’ on a tin wash-boiler is.” But when Brickett began knocking a soap box into pieces for firewood, Uncle Buck bawled at him angrily.