“I war downright glad ye tuk Ike up ez short ez ye done this evenin’, Skimp,” he said. “Though,” he added, with an afterthought, “I don’t want ye to gin yerse’f up ter makin’ game o’ folks.” “’Twar him ez fust made game o’ me,” said Skimpy, ruefully, the taunt devised by the ingenious Binwell still rankling deep in his simple heart. The twanging fiddle-strings were suddenly silent. Obadiah looked up with a fiery glance. “What gin the critter the insurance ter make game o’ you-uns, Skimp?” he demanded angrily. Until today Skimpy had never mentioned his grievance, so deeply cut down was his self-esteem, and so reduced his pride in his “gift in quirin’.” He had hardly understood it himself, but he dreaded to have the family know how low his powers were rated lest they too think poorly of them. For Skimpy himself had come to doubt his gift—the insidious jeer had roused the first self-distrust that had ever gnawed him. His voice no longer sounded to him so full, so sweet, and loud, and buoyant. He sang only to quaver away, forlorn and incredulous after the first few tones. No more soaring melodies for him. He could only fitfully chirp by the wayside. “He ’lowed,” said Skimpy, turning red, “ez I couldn’t sing—ez Bose, thar, could sing better’n _me_—hed a better voice; Bose, yander, mind ye.” Bose at the sound of his name looked up with a sleepy inquiry in his single eye. Skimpy did not notice, but began to wheeze and rasp forth,— “‘Oh-aw-ee-ye, Mister Kyune, Oh, Mister Kyune!’ That’s the way he ’lowed I sing.” “Dell-law!” Obadiah’s flexible lips distended in a wide and comprehensive sneer that displayed many large irregular teeth, and was in more ways than one far from beautiful. But to Skimpy no expression had ever seemed so benignant, indicating as it did the strength of fraternal partisanship. “He’s jes’ gredgin’ ye, Skimp,” cried Obadiah. “Else he be turned a bodacious idjit! He air a idjit fur the lack o’ sense! Shucks!”—his manner was the triumph of lofty contempt as he again lifted his violin to his ear—“don’t ye ’sturb me ag’in ’bout Ike Guyther. Don’t ye, now.” The two boys who sat at the end of the bench talked together, so eager were they to express their scorn. “The whole Smoky Mountings knows better’n that!” cried one belligerently. “Nobody kin sing like Skimpy—sings like a plumb red-headed mocking-bird, an’ Ike knows that fac’ ez well ez road ter mill,” said the other.