“Sho! you don’t say so?” he exclaimed. “Wall, take this ’long with you t’ med’tate over: ‘A blue-bottle fly makes a turrible sight of loud buzzin’, but take notice ’at it don’t git anywhar.’ An’ this: ‘Run your head into a stone wall, ef you feel like doin’ it; but don’t blame the wall none fer what happens.” Jimmy running blithely toward the barn with his book of Vallable Inf’mation in one hand and his cherished bottle of red ink in the other, met the irate Miss Cottle on the way. “I’m a-going to do _once_ what I’ve been simply _achin’_ to do ever since I set foot onto this place!” she cried shrilly; and seizing the child by the shoulder she gave him a violent shaking, concluding with a hard-handed slap or two over the ear. “Take _that_, you little tyke, you! If I’d ’a’ had you in hand for five years steady, with her gone, I’d ’a’ taken some of the laugh and smartness out of you! But now I wash my hands of you and her and him!” The child, too astonished to cry out, writhed out of the spinster’s bony grip. “I ’spise you,” he sputtered, “you ol’—ol’—Cottle woman! ’n’—’n’—I’ll put it in my Vallable Inf’mation book ’at you—slapped me when I was good!” Miss Cottle made another dive at him, and was met by a copious shower of red ink from the loosely corked bottle, which Jimmy discharged at his assailant with the practised aim of the small boy. Then he took to his heels, to be received into asylum by Peg Morrison, who was watching the proceedings from the barn-door. “Wall, Cap’n,” he said, “you sure did put that red ink to good use. Don’t you cry, son; I’ll git ye another bottle twict es big b’fore sun-down.” He chuckled deep within his capacious chest as he smoothed the little boy’s ruffled curls with his big, horny hand. “You an’ me’ll hev to write out a little vallable inf’mation on the subjec’ o’ females,” he said slowly. “The’s all kinds an’ varieties of wimmin-folks; ’n’ t’ git ’em all sorted an’ labelled, so ’t ye won’t git teetotally fooled ’ll take the better part of a lifetime.” XXI BARBARA was shut into her chamber looking over her wardrobe with a view to approaching winter. In the autumn the call would come, Jarvis had told her. Already the ripening apples glowed like live coals along the laden orchard boughs, and the brisk September winds scattered drifts of yellowing leaves about the feet of the early dying locusts below her windows. Martha Cottle was gone, after a stormy scene in which she had exacted redress and largesse of the most lavish description. Barbara had drawn a long breath of relief when the last echo of the spinster’s strident voice and the last militant thump of her flat-heeled shoes had died away. Peg and Jimmy had openly exulted in the final retreat of the enemy; and Peg took occasion to exhort his dearly beloved mistress anew concerning the inscrutable yet invariably benevolent workings of Providence, as signally evidenced in the hasty departure of Martha Cottle.