"By mighty!" ejaculated Uncle Jason. "Cale Hotchkiss was as square a feller as ever walked on sole-leather. I'm glad he's dead. If he'd lived to see his son turn out so bad----" "'Twarn't Caleb Hotchkiss' blood I was referrin' to," Walky struck in. "Caleb merried one o' them Pickberry gals over to Bowling. An' you know well enough what them Pickberrys was. As for this here Tom, he was as sly as a skunk-bear when he was a boy." "For goodness' sake!" interrupted Janice, hoping to divert the tide of Walky's talk. "What is a 'skunk-bear'?" "Wolverine," explained her cousin quickly. "And the meanest creature that ever got on a line of traps. Hey, Walky?" "Now you've said it, boy," agreed the expressman. "An' that remin's me of one of the meanest things that Tom Hotchkiss done when he was a boy." "Oh, well!" grunted Uncle Jason, who evidently disliked the discussion of Tom's short-comings. "They say George Washington cut down his father's favorite cherry tree; yet he grew up to be president." "Huh! but he didn't lie about it--_that's_ why he got to be president," said the astute Walkworthy. "And Tom Hotchkiss lied about this mean thing _he_ done." "Wal! let's have it," Mr. Day said, with a sigh. "It'll choke ye I can plainly see if ye ain't allowed to unburden your soul." Walky began to stuff his pipe out of Mr. Day's tobacco sack that he had appropriated from the shelf beside the door. "Ye see," he said, "Tom worked for ol' man Ketcham a while--him that run the dairy farm over Middletown way. But Tom never did work long in one place when he was a boy. _That_ oughter told ye something, Jase." Mr. Day grunted. Marty said: "Go on with your story, Walky. Who told you you was the law and the prophets?" "I was prophet enough about how Tom Hotchkiss was a-comin' aout," chuckled Walky. "Wal! howsomever, old Ketcham run quite a dairy for them days. He bought up all the neighbors' milk, too, and made butter and cheese. I expect 'twould ha' been called a crematory to-day." "Ho, ho!" shouted Marty. "That's a hot one. Creamery, you mean, Walky." "Oh, do I?" said the unruffled Mr. Dexter. "Wal, mebbe I do. Anyhow, he stood Tom and his tricks quite a spell--he was slow to wrath, was old Ketcham, bein' a Quaker by persuasion; but bimeby Tom got too much for him and he turned him away. Tom was a great practical joker--oh, yes! But he was one o' them kind that gits mad when the joke's turned on themselves. So he was sore on the Ketchams." "Huh! he ain't the only one geared that-a-way," put in Mr. Day. "No; but he was about the only feller I ever knowed that 'ud ha' thunk up sech a mean way of gittin' square with old Ketcham." "What did he do?" demanded Marty, becoming impatient at the expressman's leisurely tale, while Aunt 'Mira got up and began to stir about the kitchen, clearing the supper table. She often confessed to Janice that it gave her legs "the twidgets" to listen to one of Walky's long-drawn-out stories.