His mother had almost dropped the baby, who made a great lunge toward Bose. “Why,” she cried, “Skimpy gits his singin’ ways right straight from his gran-dad Grisham—_my_ dad—ez war knowed ter be the mos’ servigrous singer they hed ennywhar roun’ in this kentry fifty year ago. I hev hearn all the old folks tell ’bout’n his singin’ an’ his fiddlin’ when he war young, an’ I ’members he sung fune’l chunes whenst he war a old man; he hed gin up the ways o’ the worl’ an’ he wouldn’t sing none ’ceptin’ ’round the buryin’ groun’ whenst they war c’mittin’ some old friend ter the yearth. An’ his voice would sound strange—strange, an’ sweet an’ wild, like the water on the rocks in a lonesome place, or the voice of a sperit out’n the sky. Oh my!—oh my!”—she was rocking herself to and fro with the baby in her arms, her distended eyes looking far down the vistas of the past. “How I ’members it—how I ’members it!” Hark! Skimpy starts with a sudden shock. Was that the beating of the boughs on the roof, drum-like, or a rub-a-dub measure played with two pea-sticks on the rail fence of the garden—the signal by which Jerry Binwell was to summon him should he conclude to try the hazardous enterprise this night? The wind—only the wind; wild weather without! Thankful he was to be left to this cheerful fireside, and the warm partisan hearts so near akin to him. “I wonder ye didn’t larrup Ike, Skimpy,” said Obadiah. “Ye could do it. He’s heavy, but mighty clumsy. Ye could run aroun’ him fifty times whilst he war a-turnin’ his fat sides roun’.” Obadiah knitted his brows and nodded confidently at Skimpy. “I never thunk ’bout fightin’,” responded Skimpy. “My feelin’s war jes’ so scrabbled up I never keered fur nuthin’ else! Arter Ike an’ me hed been so frien’ly too!” “That’s like my dad. Skimpy’s like his gran-dad,” said Mrs. Sawyer, dreamily. “He war tender an’ easy hurt in his feelin’s.”