"Up to a week ago," confessed Mr. Gammon, gazing away from the blazing eyes of Hiram into the placid orbs of the calf in the tree, "we was goin' to git married. Farms adjoined. She knowed me and I knowed her. I've been solemn since Mis' Gammon died, but I've been gittin' over it. We was goin' to jine farms and I was goin' to live over to her place, because it wouldn't be so pleasant here with Mis' Gammon--" He hesitated, and ducked despondent head in the direction of the front yard. "Well, seconds don't usually want to set in the front parlor window and read firsts' epitaphs for amusement," remarked Hiram, grimly. "What then?" "Well, then all at once she wouldn't let me into the house, and she shooed me off'm her front steps like she would a yaller cat, and when I tried to find out about it that young Haskell feller that she's hired to do her chores come over here and told me that he wasn't goin' to stay there much longer, 'cause she had turned witch, and had put a cluck onto the cat when the old hen--" "'Tend to cases! 'Tend to cases!" broke in Hiram, impatiently. "And about that time the things began to act out round my place, and the Haskell boy told me that she was braggin' how she had me bewitched." "And you believed that kind of infernal tomrot?" inquired the showman, wrathfully. Somewhat to the Cap'n's astonishment, Hiram seemed to be taking only a sane and normal view of the thing. "I did, after I went over and taxed her with it, and she stood off and pointed her shotgun at me and said that yes, she was a witch, and if I didn't get away and keep away she would turn me into a caterpillar and kill me with a fly-spanker. There! When a woman says that about herself, what be ye goin' to do--tell her she's a liar, or be a gent and believe her?" Mr. Gammon was bridling a little. Hiram looked at "Cheerful Charles" and jerked his head around and stared at the Cap'n as though hoping for some suggestion. But the selectman merely shook his head with a pregnant expression of "I told you so!" Hiram got up and stamped around the tree to cover what was evidently momentary embarrassment. All at once he kicked at something in the grass, bent over and peered at it, looked up at the calf, then picked up the object on the ground and stuffed it deep into his trousers pocket. "You said that chore feller's name was Haskell, hey?" he demanded, returning and standing over Mr. Gammon. "Simmy Haskell," said the other. "Well, now, what have you done to _him_?" "Nothin'--never--no, sir--never nothin'!" insisted Mr. Gammon, with such utter conviction that Hiram forebore to question further. He whirled on his heel and started away toward the chimney that poked above the rise of land. "Come along!" he called, gruffly, over his shoulder, and the two followed. It was a trim little place that was revealed to them. A woman in a sunbonnet was on her knees near some plants in the cozy front yard, and a youth was wheeling apples up out of the orchard.