"Why, Mr. Pritchett! I believe you are in the habit of doing such things. I am afraid you get out that way often, and the family knows nothing about it." "Naw, I don't--only circus days, an' w'en the Wild West show comes, an'--an' Fourth of July mornin's. But don't you tell; will yer?" "Cross my heart!" promised 'Phemie, giggling. "But suppose you should shoot somebody around here with that gun?" "Sarve 'em aout jest right!" declared the young farmer, boldly. "B'sides, I'd only load it with rock-salt. 'Twould pepper 'em some." "Salt and pepper 'em, Lucas," giggled the girl. "And season 'em right, I expect, for breaking our rest." "I'll do it!" declared Lucas. "Don't you dare!" threatened 'Phemie. "Why--why----" Lucas was swamped in his own confusion again. "Not unless I tell you you may," said 'Phemie, smiling on him dazzlingly once more. "Wa-al." "Wait and see if we are disturbed again," spoke the girl, more kindly. "I really am obliged to you, Lucas; but I couldn't hear of your watching under our windows these cold nights--and, of course, it wouldn't be proper for us to let you stay in the house." "Wa-al," agreed the disappointed youth. "But if ye need me, ye'll let me know?" "Sure pop!" she told him, and was only sorry when he was gone that she could not tell Lyddy all about it, and give her older sister "an imitation" of Lucas as a cavalier. The girls wrote the letter to Aunt Jane that evening and the next morning they watched for the rural mail-carrier, who came along the highroad, past the end of their lane, before noon. He brought a letter from Aunt Jane for Lyddy, and he was ready to stop and gossip with the girls who had so recently come to Hillcrest Farm. "I'm glad to see some life about the old doctor's house again," declared the man. "I can remember Dr. Polly--everybody called him that--right well. He was a queer customer some ways--brusk, and sort of rough. But he was a good deal like a chestnut burr. His outside was his worst side. He didn't have no soothing bedside mannerisms; but if a feller was real _sick_, it was a new lease of life to jest have the old doctor come inter the room!" It made the girls happy and proud to have people speak this way of their grandfather. "He warn't a man who didn't make enemies," ruminated the mail-carrier. "He was too strong a man not to be well hated in certain quarters. He warn't pussy-footed. What he meant he said out square and straight, an' when he put his foot down he put it down emphatic. Yes, sir! "But he had a sight more friends than enemies when he died. And lots o' folks that thought they hated Dr. Polly could look back--when he was dead and gone--an' see how he'd done 'em many a kind turn unbeknownst to 'em at the time. "Why," rambled on the mail-carrier, "I was talkin' to Jud Spink in Birch's store only las' night. Jud ain't been 'round here for some time before, an' suthin' started talk about the old doctor. Jud, of course, sailed inter him."