Kate played with us, smiling now and then at my uncle's merry ways and words, but never speaking. It was poor fun, for the cards seemed to take her away from us into other scenes so that she had to be reminded of her turn to play. "I dunno but she'll swing back into this world ag'in," said Uncle Peabody when we had gone up to our little room. "I guess all she needs is to be treated like a human bein'. Yer Aunt Deel an' I couldn't git over thinkin' o' what she done for you that night in the ol' barn. So I took some o' yer aunt's good clothes to her an' a pair o' boots an' asked her to come to Chris'mas. She lives in a little room over the blacksmith shop down to Butterfield's mill. I told her I'd come after her with the cutter but she shook her head. I knew she'd rather walk." He was yawning as he spoke and soon we were both asleep under the shingles. CHAPTER XIII THE THING AND OTHER THINGS I returned to Mr. Hacket's house late in the afternoon of New Year's day. The schoolmaster was lying on a big lounge in a corner of their front room with the children about him. The dusk was falling. "Welcome, my laddie buck!" he exclaimed as I entered. "We're telling stories o' the old year an' you're just in time for the last o' them. Sit down, lad, and God give ye patience! It'll soon be over." Little John led me into the group and the schoolmaster began:--Let us call this bit of a story: _The Guide to Paradise_. "One day in early June I was lyin' under the big apple tree in the garden--sure I was. It was all white and sweet with the blossoms like a bride in her veil--an' I heard the hum o' the bee's wing an' odors o' the upper world come down to me. I was lookin' at the little bird house that we had hung in the tree-top. Of a sudden I saw a tiny bit o' a 'warf--no longer than the thumb o' Mary--God love her!--on its wee porch an' lookin' down at me. "'Good luck to ye!' says I. 'Who are you?' "'Who do ye think I am?' says he. "'Nobody,' says I. "'That's just who I am,' says he, 'I'm Nobody from Nowhere--God save you from the like.' "'Glad to see ye,' says I. "'Glad to be seen,' says he. 'There's a mighty few people can see me.' "'Looks to me as if ye were tellin' the truth,' says I. "'Nobody is the only one that always tells the truth--God help ye,' says he. 'And here's a big chunk o' it. Not one in a thousand ever gets the feet o' his mind in the land o' Nowhere--better luck to them!' "'Where is it?' says I. "'Up above the earth where the great God keeps His fiddle,' says he. "'What fiddle?' says I. "'The fiddle o' silence,' says he. 'Sure, I'm playin' it now. It has long strings o' gold that reach 'way out across the land o' Nowhere--ye call 'em stars. The winds and the birds play on it. Sure, the birds are my hens.' "He clapped his little hands and down came a robin and sat beside him. Nobody rumpled up the feathers on her back and she queed like she was goin' to peck me--the hussy!