“Wal, I know this much,” said “Figger-Four,” putting away his weed and buttoning his coat before facing the cold; “I know that an el’phunt wants meals reg’lar--a lot of it, can’t understand a joke and don’t like music on the flute. There may be other things about ’em to know, but they ain’t things that I need in my bus’ness.” CHAPTER XVIII--YANKEE DISPOSITION IS NOT EXACTLY UNDERSTOOD, EVEN BY ITS POSSESSORS. “Old Zibe Haines had a corn on his toe And it ached like ginger ev’ry step he’d go. He reckoned that toe had all them pains Jest for to hector old Zibe Haines. He grabbed up a mallet and a chisel, too, And clear’n to the woodpile swore things blue. He put that toe on the choppin’ block And off he whacked it, slap, ker-chock! And he throwed that toe ’bout ha’f a mile-- Oh, that was old Zibe Haines’s style. Tum-diddy-dum and tum-diddy-dee, Queer old crab was Haines, was he!” --Narrated by Marriner Amazeen. Squire Phineas Look, during the life of his love for Sylvena Willard, had become pretty thoroughly accustomed to having his heart affairs marked “Continued till next session,” as he half-bitterly termed it in his meditations. Coupled with Squire Phin’s natural reserve was that quality of his trained lawyer mind that was willing to abide delays till “his case was prepared.” In some men this would have been timidity. In others it would have been half-heartedness. In Squire Phin it was fixity of purpose and the steady loyalty of a firm, pure, true love that could wait. Down in Smyrna the summer visitors still listen with mingled emotions to the story of the loves of Moses Britt and Xoa Emerson. After they became engaged Moses worked for eight years accumulating enough money to buy three-eights of a fishing schooner. Xoa toiled at housework in various families, picked blueberries for the canning factory, and, by any employment that came to her hand, earned and saved for the little home that they had planned. “We won’t get married till we can have our house built and furnished and ready to step into,” was the mark they had set thriftily for themselves. The house went up, so old Mell Cowallis remarked, like the way “Figger-Four” Avery walked--steady by jerks: one year the foundation, another year the side walls and roof, a third year the chimneys and the lathing and clapboards--and so on for successive seasons, according as the fishing prospered and the work-stained fingers of Xoa tucked away the clinking change and the worn dollar bills.