"Hit's a pity," continued Mr. Lindsay, "but what Miss Lucy knowed about him a gittin' blind drunk in town a Christmas Eve, and a havin' to be carried down to the cellar and laid there like a sack o' bran ontel mornin'. "I wuz in town a gittin' ready to start out, and Reub Brock, he come to me, a beggin' me to please come and holp him carry his pappy sommers. I didn't want to, but I felt sorry fer Reub--him a puffin' and a wheezin'--tryin' to git the old dead drunk fool off the sidewalk to where he wouldn't be run over er freeze, so I tuck holt, and we got him down in the cellar! Made me plumb sick a handlin' him!" "I'd jest tell Miss Lucy," suggested Jim. "What's the use in keepin' back thengs a body ought to know?" "I hain't never told hit to nobody, on account o' Reub and Evy," declared Mr. Lindsay. "Reub said, Christmas, 'Fer poor Mammy's sake, Mr. Lindsay, don't tell on Pappy!' and I hain't up to this time. "I been a keepin' back more'n that too. The Jameses always set sech store by old Brock, and he wuzn't a pesterin' me, but--" he rose and threw on his coat, a hot and angry red flushing his face--"but now I despise the old snivellin' hypocrite! My mother always taught me the sin o' fightin', and I have tried to live at peace with ever'body like she taught me to, but ef I'd 'a' been brung up to wipe out them that needs a wipin' out, there wouldn't be no trace of old Brock in this vicinity long! And I'm a goin' to let Miss Lucy James know how her new beau's been in the habit o' conductin' himse'f, ef hit's the last act o' my life!" CHAPTER VIII AT THE TOBACCO BARN "Farewell grief and welcome joy, Ten thousand times therefore!" "Got on your red waist ag'in this mornin', have you? Tuck to primpin' on a week day fer old Lindsay, have you, and what does he keer fer you? And ef he did, what is _he_ anyhow? I jest wisht you knowed somethin' I've heard about him lately!" Miss Lucy's eyes, circled and swollen, told on Monday morning of a troubled and sleepless night. She turned wearily away from Miss Nancy, making no attempt at excuse for the new waist which she had thrust on hastily in the darkness when she arose, too dispirited to care what she put on. Mr. Lindsay, coming in at this moment, met Miss Lucy's look of consternation with one of settled determination. Miss Nancy's last words (she never mumbled her speeches, but invariably made them sharp and distinct) had reached him, and given his resolution to speak to Miss Lucy at the earliest opportunity, a sudden impetus, like that given a door that bursts open behind a fierce blast of wind. The little dairy under the harness-room was out of range of the kitchen windows, and quite out of earshot. "Let me carry the milk down the milk-house steps fer you, Miss Lucy," he suggested, as Miss Lucy attempted to lift one of the pails from the table: "the wind's a blowin' turrible hard, and might blow you down with them full buckets." But Miss Nancy forestalled him.