“Needn’t tell me nuthin’ ag’in Bose—I know Bose!” said Mrs. Sawyer emphatically—thus a good name is ever proof against detraction. “Hang up that thar fiddle, Oby,” she continued. “I wonder the baby ain’t been woked up afore considerin’ the racket ye kep’ up. An’ go down yander ter the ’tater patch an’ see ef yer dad don’t need ye ter holp dig the ’taters. I don’t need ye hyar—an’ that fiddle don’t need ye nuther. I be half crazed with that thar everlastin’ sawin’ an’ scrapin’ o’ yourn, keep-in’ on ez ef yer muscles war witched, an’ ye _couldn’t_ quit.” She sat down on a chair beside the cradle and began to rock it with her foot, readjusting the while the quilts over the head of the affronted infant, who straightway flung them off again that he might have more room for his vocalization. Obadiah went obediently and hung up the fiddle, and presently looking down the slope Skimpy saw him wending his way toward the potato patch. “I dunno how kem Oby ’lows that thar old fiddle b’longs to him, more’n it do ter the rest o’ we-uns,” Skimpy observed discontentedly, when the baby’s vociferations had subsided into a sort of soliloquy, keeping time with the rhythmic motions of the rockers. It was neither mutter nor wail nor indicative of unhappiness, but it expressed a firmly perverse resolution not to go to sleep again if he could help it, and rose instantly into a portentous howl if the monotonous rocking was intermitted for a moment. “’Twar yer gran’dad’s fiddle,” said Mrs. Sawyer. “That’s the only sure enough owner it ever hed—he never gin it ter nobody in partic’lar whenst he died. An’ it jes’ hung thar on the wall till Obadiah ’peared ter take a kink ter play it.” Obadiah doubtless considered himself entitled to the fiddle by the right of primogeniture—though Obadiah did not call it by this name. As Skimpy reflected upon the nature of his brother’s claim he felt that there was no reason why he should not insist on sharing the ownership. It was not Obadiah’s fiddle—it belonged to the family. The baby’s voice sank gradually to a jerky monotone, then to a murmur and so to silence. The rockers of the cradle jogged thumpingly up and down the floor for a few minutes longer. And then Mrs. Sawyer betook herself once more to her task of hanging out the clothes, while Bose guarded the cradle, and Skimpy still sat on the steps, his elbows on his knees, and his pondering head held between his hands. The lengthening yellow sunbeams poured through the cabin door, venturing gradually up the walls to where the silent instrument hung, filling it with a rich glow and playing many a fantasy though never stirring a string. X.