“My, oh, my!” murmured the old man, his face beaming with contentment as he sat basking in the sun. “Don’t the old bench feel good agin? Why, me an’ this oak board hes ben buddies fer nigh onter sixty years.” The season seemed to have imposed new life into the Chronic Loafer as it had nature. He suddenly tossed off his coat, with one leap cleared the steps and began dancing up and down in the road. “It jest makes a felly feel like wrastlin’, Gran’pap,” he shouted, waving his arms defiantly at the bench. “Come on.” The Patriarch stroked his long beard and smiled amusedly at this unexpected exhibition of energy. The Miller’s nose curled contemptuously skyward, and he fell to beating the flour out of his coat to show his indifference to the challenge. The Tinsmith puffed more vigorously at his pipe, so that the great clouds of smoke that swept upward from the clay bowl, enveloped the Storekeeper and caused him to sneeze violently. At this indisposition on the part of the four to take up the gauntlet he had thrown down, the Loafer became still more defiant. “Hedgins!” he sneered. “You uns is all afraid, eh?” “Nawthin’ to be afraid of,” snapped the Miller. “Simple because spring’s come, ez it’s ben comin’ ever since I can remember, I hain’t a-goin’ to waller ’round in a muddy road.” The School Teacher laid his left hand upon his heart, and fixing a solemn gaze on the roof of the porch, recited: “In the spring the young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.” “There ye go agin,” cried the Loafer, “quotin’ that ole Fifth Reader o’ yourn.” “That,” said the pedagogue, “is Tennyson.” “I thot it was familar,” exclaimed the Storekeeper. A smile crept into his usually vacant face, and he slapped the Teacher on the knee. “You mean ole Seth Tennyson that runs the Shingletown creamery. He’s a cute un.” The reply was a withering, pitying glance. “It sounds a heap more like Seth’s brother Bill,” ventured the Miller. “Don’t git argyin’ on that,” said the Loafer. “There’s nawthin’ particular new or good in it any way. The main pint is I bantered ye an’ you uns ’s all dead skeert.” “Come, come,” said the Patriarch, beating his stick on the floor to call the boaster to order. “Ef I was five year younger I’d take your banter; I’d druv yer head inter the mud tell you’d be afraid of showin’ up at the store fer a year, fer fear some un’d shovel ye inter the road. That’s what I’d do. I hates blowin’, I do--I hates blowin’. Fur be it from me to blow, particular ez I was somethin’ of a wrastler ’hen I was a young un.” “I bet I could ’a’ th’owed you in less time ’an it takes me to set down,” the Loafer said, as he seated himself on the steps and got out his pipe.