I had to cast two or three straightforward looks at William to reassure myself that he really looked happy and expectant in spite of his melancholy circumstances, and was not being overtaken by retribution. The brother and sister seemed to be on delightful terms with each other for once, and there was something of cheerful anticipation in their morning talk. I was reminded of Medea’s anointing Jason before the great episode of the iron bulls, but to-day William really could not be going up country to see a railroad for the first time. I knew this to be one of his great schemes, but he was not fitted to appear in public, or to front an observing world of strangers. As I appeared he essayed to rise, but Mrs. Todd pushed him back into the chair. “Set where you be till it dries on,” she insisted. “Land sakes, you’d think he’d get over bein’ a boy some time or ’nother, gettin’ along in years as he is. An’ you’d think he’d seen full enough o’ fish, but once a year he has to break loose like this, an’ travel off way up back o’ the Bowden place—far out o’ my beat, ’tis—an’ go a trout fishin’!” Her tone of amused scorn was so full of challenge that William changed color even under the green streaks. “I want some change,” he said, looking at me and not at her. “’Tis the prettiest little shady brook you ever saw.” “If he ever fetched home more ’n a couple o’ minnies, ’twould seem worth while,” Mrs. Todd concluded, putting a last dab of the mysterious compound so perilously near her brother’s mouth that William flushed again and was silent. A little later I witnessed his escape, when Mrs. Todd had taken the foolish risk of going down cellar. There was a horse and wagon outside the garden fence, and presently we stood where we could see him driving up the hill with thoughtless speed. Mrs. Todd said nothing, but watched him affectionately out of sight. “It serves to keep the mosquitoes off,” she said, and a moment later it occurred to my slow mind that she spoke of the pennyroyal lotion. “I don’t know sometimes but William’s kind of poetical,” she continued, in her gentlest voice. “You’d think if anything could cure him of it, ’twould be the fish business.” It was only twenty minutes past six on a summer morning, but we both sat down to rest as if the activities of the day were over. Mrs. Todd rocked gently for a time, and seemed to be lost, though not poorly, like Macbeth, in her thoughts. At last she resumed relations with her actual surroundings. “I shall now put my lobsters on. They’ll make us a good supper,” she announced. “Then I can let the fire out for all day; give it a holiday, same’s William. You can have a little one now, nice an’ hot, if you ain’t got all the breakfast you want. Yes, I’ll put the lobsters on. William was very thoughtful to bring ’em over; William is thoughtful; if he only had a spark o’ ambition, there be few could match him.”