The Purdee grasp was gentler on the little girl's arm. This was due not to fraternal feeling so much as to loyalty to the clan; “stack o' bones” though she was, they were Purdee bones. “Kem along,” Ab Purdee exhorted her. “A baby ain't nuthin' extry, nohow”--he glanced scoffingly at the infantile Grinnell. “The mountings air fairly a-roamin' with 'em.” “We-uns 'ain't got none at our house,” whined the sun-bonnet, droopingly, moving off slowly on its legs, which, indeed, seemed borrowed, so unsteady, and loath to go they were. The Grinnell boys laughed aloud, jeeringly and ostentatiously, and the Purdee blood was moved to retort: “We-uns don't want none sech ez that. Nary tooth in her head!” And indeed the widely stretched babbling lips displayed a vast vacuity of gum. Job Grinnell, who had listened with an attentive ear to the talk of the children, had nevertheless continued his constant skimming of the scum. Now he rose from his bent posture, tossed the scum upon the ground, and with the perforated gourd in his hand turned and looked at his wife. Augusta had dropped her apron and chips, and stood with folded arms across her breast, her face wearing an expression of exasperated expectancy. The Grinnell boys were humbled and abashed. The wicked scion of the Purdee house, joying to note how true his shaft had sped, was again fitting his bow. “An' ez bald-headed ez the mounting.” The baby had a big precedent, but although no peculiar shame attaches to the bare pinnacle of the summit, she--despite the difference in size and age--was expected to show up more fully furnished, and in keeping with the rule of humanity and the gentilities of life. No teeth, no hair, no sign of any: the fact that she was so backward was a sore point with all the family. Job Grinnell suddenly dropped the perforated gourd, and started down toward the fence. The acrimony of the old feud was as a trait bred in the bone. Such hatred as was inherent in him was evoked by his religious jealousies, and the pious sense that he was following the traditions of his elders and upholding the family honor blended in gentlest satisfaction with his personal animosity toward Roger Purdee as he noticed the boy edging off from the fence to a safe distance. He eyed him derisively for a moment. “Kin ye kerry a message straight?” The boy looked up with an expression of sullen acquiescence, but said nothing. “Ax yer dad--an'ye kin tell him the word kems from me--whether he hev read sech ez this on the lawgiver's stone tables yander in the mounting: 'An' ye shall claim sech ez be yourn, an' yer neighbor's belongings shall ye in no wise boastfully medjure fur yourn, nor look upon it fur covet-iousness, nor yit git up a big name in the kentry fur ownin' sech ez be another's.'” He laughed silently--a twinkling, wrinkling demonstration over all his broad face--a laugh that was younger than the man, and would have befitted a square-faced boy.