happening now. The tired look left her face and her eyes grew big with excitement.

"Hev' yer gone clean daffy, Polly Maria? Can't yer speak?" demanded. her aunt impatiently.

"Do-do you s'pose he's dead by now?" asked her niece, drawing a long breath.

"Dead! Who's dead?"

"The peddler. Bartholomew's killed folks before, you knowthat's how we got him so cheap. Oh, the constable'll come for us an' we'll hang, Aunt Patience, we'll hang!" she cried in sudden terror.

"Help! Hi, there-help!" came a mournful, yet angry cry from the woodshed. "Gol darn it-help!"

"Humph! Guess he ain't dead. yet-he's profanin'!" observed Aunt Patience, with evident relief. "Wal', we've got to do suthin', Polly Maria, an' do it quick. Fust, we must find where that dratted ram is now!"

"Why, Aunt Patience Weed! That's an awful word!" exclaimed her niece, visibly shocked.

"Wal', it matches the ram then! You remember we was warned 'fore we bought There's that peddler yellin' again! Where are yer, Mr. -Mr. Peddler? Are yer hurt?" she called anxiously, opening the woodshed door about an inch.

"My name, Madam, is Barrowscales-Lemuel Huntington Barrowscales," came the muffled reply. "I am on the top of a large woodpile, in a corner up next to the roof. I do not remember how I came-but I am here, and the waterpail is with me. In reply to your inquiry about my injuries, Madam, I will inform you that my feelings have been decidedly hurt and I am also seriously injured elsewhere! Such an un

provoked assault will be awarded heavy damages in court, and-look out!-he's coming again!"

Aunt Patience bolted the door in a hurry, and Polly Maria gave a stifled scream as it shook on its hinges two seconds after.

"If he keeps on buttin' that way, he'll smash in here and kill us-and the baby!" cried Polly Maria, again overcome with fright.

"You-you varmint!" screamed Aunt Patience angrily, her eyes glued to a tiny crack near the casing. "You'd better stand there an' stamp yer feet! You'l! stamp harder when I scald yer! That's jest what I'll do! Polly Maria, is the water in that kittle bilin'? Give it to me then!"

"Now, Aunt, don't yer do nothin' rash. You wait-I'll get some cayenne pepper, an' we'll both go for him!"

Gathering a good supply of ammunition, they peeped cautiously out and waited for Bartholomew's next appearance.

"Madam-er-what's your name!" yelled the peddler. "Come! Aren't you going to call off your pet brute? I'm getting tired of this!"

"We're tryin'-but we can't do nothin with him!" cried the two

Women.

"Now, Madam, you let me down out of this and I'll agree not to take this case to court. That is fair, is it not?"

The women stared at each other in astonishment. "Guess you ain't acquainted with our Bartholomew !" said Aunt Patience contemptuously. "Let me tell yer thet he's the biggest an' ugliest ram in the state! An' he can't be called ner coaxed, ner driv'! He's killed folks, they say-trampled 'em ter death after

We'll do all we can ter scare him away somewhere, but it looks ter me as if you'd stay where yer are till Jeddy comes home, 'long towards night, Mr. Peddler."

"Barrowscales, if you please. You will remember that name when you are sued for damages by its owner, Madam! But come, come. Time is money with me, and I am losing a lot of it. Now, I will drop the case I have against you, and you may keep the side combs and the baby pacifier too, Madam, free of charge -absolutely free-if you'll let me down."

"Git down any time yer want to! I ain't stoppin' yer! Here he is comin' again! Don't yer be scared an' run now, Polly Maria!" cried Aunt Patience in a shaking voice. "Wait till he gits up close!"

Round the corner of the woodpile came a streak of gray and

women dodged inside. Red pepper filled the air and the steam was not to Bartholomew's liking either. He sniffed angrily, ran backward a few steps, charged forward-and the kettle took a trip to the woodpile, just missing the man on top.

"That ought to be good for a home run, old boy!" chuckled the peddler, forgetting his own troubles for a moment. "I say, Madam,” he shouted, "I thought it was about dinner time. Is this the first course? Seems to be rather thin-is it consomme or ox-tail?"

A succession of loud sneezes from behind the kitchen door was

his only reply. He called again, and then, as the full humor of the situation dawned upon him, gave way to roars of laughter that penetrated the kitchen and brought Aunt Patience to the door with red, indignant face. She was still sneezing and Polly Maria echoed each

one.

"Coast is clear, ladies!" called the voice from the dim corner of the shed. "I'm getting hungry, however, so send up the fish and meat courses at once, if you please. And a soapstone for my feet-it is getting chilly here! If you could get me a cushion for my back, and oneno, two, to sit on-" He went off into another hearty roar.

"I hope," snapped Aunt Patience, between sneezes, "thet you'll hev' ter stay up there three days! An' yer will fer all me! I vum, I won't do nuthin' more ter amuse yer!"

"Why, Madam! My dear Madam! You misjudge me!" exclaimed the peddler, becoming sober instantly. "There was nothing funny in what you did. I was just laughing at his honor there! I'm tired of cussing, you know, and thought I might as

well laugh. Your side comb is slipping, Madam. The left one-that's it. Now, Madam, I must get down. from here and go about my day's work. Can't we use a little diplo macy and get him through that door into the barn, and shut him in ?"

"If you think so, you jest try it!" said Aunt Patience bluntly. "He's jest hidin' round the corner now, ready to butt in at the littlest sound!"

A lively discussion followed and various plans were tried with no result. Dinner time came and went and the situation remained unchanged. The peddler grew tired, hungry and cold, and was indignant, jocular, and decidedly angry by turns. When he had about concluded that he could only accept the inevitable and wait until "Jeddy" arrived, Polly Maria suddenly appeared with a lot of apples.

"He's way out in the barnyard now!" she cried excitedly. "You take these, Aunt Patience, an' git to the haymow, an' drop some right down into his pen. He'll hear the noise. an' come in an' eat—an' we'll shut the door!"

Aunt Patience's mouth closed grimly. "Is think you was crazy, Polly Maria!" she exclaimed in a disgusted stage whisper. "D' you expect me to go to shinnin' at my time o' life-'fore a strange man, too?"

"No-no! Go up the ladder that Jeddy left over in that corner-see? I can't leave baby, so you'll hev' to go, Aunt Patience! I'll make a racket out by the front door an' 'tice Tholly round there, so he won't hear you."

At first Aunt Patience flatly refused. The continued urging of the

peddler and Polly Maria, however, and the thought of long hours before the return of her nephew, finally induced her to doubtfully agree to the plan.

"Go on, Aunt," shouted Polly Maria from the front room. "He's way up in the north pasture now, eatin' grass! Go on!"

"So do, Madam, so do!" encouraged the peddler. "Put the ladder right against that beam-firmlynow climb!"

Filling her apron with apples, Aunt Patience Weed began her upward journey. The ladder seemed longer and steeper than she had thought, and was not so steady as it might have been. When it wobbled, she swayed dizzily, and her skirts were such a handicap that her progress was not fast. As she neared the top, there came two warning shouts. In wild terror she let her apron go and scrambled for the beam-just in time,-for Bartholomew came against the foot of the ladder like a thousand bricks, and when it fell broke it into three pieces as easily as if it had been kindling wood. Aunt Patience turned white and trembled so that she had difficulty in retaining her footing.

"There! Now yer see what he can do, don't yer?" she cried to the peddler, directly opposite, although not so high up. "Thet's my second narrer escape ter-day. It's a wonder I ain't in Kingdom Come this minnit! I bet I'll never step my foot on the ground agin 'til thet beast is shot!" she cried angrily, steadying herself against a post. "Guess I'd hev' ter stay anywaydon't know how in sancho I could git down even if I wanted to! An' now I'm here, I ain't got no apples.

Jest look at that beast gullopin' 'em down! I'm so mad I could bawl! Con-confound yer, Mr. Peddler. why d-don't yer do suthin'?"

"There, there, Madam, don't get nervous," was the soothing answer. "You had better get to the haymow; yes, get to the mow, Madam. That beam can not be comfortable. Come to this end of it a little further. There—now step across to that flooring."

Aunt Patience turned to stare at him in angry amazement, and nearly lost her balance again. "There! Step across there? Why, it's more'n ten feet! Yer're an idiot-an' Polly Maria too! Why what ails-Polly! Polly Maria! Yer sick? Yer hurt?"

The figure in the doorway swayed and rocked. Then there was a sound that literally took Aunt Patience off her feet, and she sat down heavily. Polly Maria was laughing -laughing until she cried! When she realized the awful fact, Aunt Patience addressed her niece with. all the dignity she could command.

"I 'spose, Mrs. Jed Weed," she said sarcastically, "thet yer're laughin' at me. An' I 'spose yer'd laugh harder if I should slip off here into the lion's jaws-"

"Ram's, Madam!" corrected the peddler, laughing almost as hard as Polly.

"An' be chewed up into hamburg steak," went on Aunt Patience, not' deigning to notice the interruption. "You an' thet precious peddler got me up here a purpose to make a laughin' stock out of me! Old as I be, if I could git at yer, I'd trounce yer both well!" she declared, striking her heels together angrily.

"Careful, Madam, careful, or you will fall!" cautioned the peddler.

"And if you insist on calling me pet names, I prefer 'dearest' to 'precious' any day."

Aunt Patience glared, too angry to reply, and Polly Maria and the peddler went off into another outburst as they saw her martyred expression. Of their excuses, after it was over, she took no notice; their apologies were received in stony silence. Polly Maria's earnest and pathetic explanation that she "hadn't laughed before, nor even smiled, for ages, failed to move her, and she gazed, sphinx-like, at some dusty cobwebs in a distant corner.

"Come, come, Madam!" cried the peddler, pulling out a small pocket dictionary. "You must forgive us, you know, with your name! Just hear what this good book says about it-'patience: the suffering of afflictions, pain, toil, calamity, provocation, or other evil, with a calm, unruffled temper! So you see, Aunt Patience, that-"

"I ain't no aunt of yours, an' you needn't call me so!" snapped the lady above him, goaded to speech at last.

"Ah, ha!" roared the peddler, striking the most approved attitude that his position on the woodpile would allow.

could recite that whole play, Madam. I know all the characters."

"I don't," snapped Aunt Patience, "an' I'm sure I don't want to, if they're anythin' like you, Mr. Peddler!"

"Barrowscales as I have said before, Madam. Your right side comb is slipping-that's good now. His honor has finished all your apples and I think, Madam, that I will now give him this woodpile, stick by stick, for dessert."

The first stick was deftly dodged and greeted with contemptuous snuffs and snorts and stamping. Then "dear little Tholly" began to cut circles, some fast, some slow, over the pieces of the broken ladder. In the half light of the place, his eyes gleamed a dull red and he rolled them wickedly from one. captive to the other. The second stick struck him broadside, and he danced with fury, butting the ground, the partitions and the woodpile.

"Ah, ha! Trying to shake me down, are you? Well, take that― and that-and that!"

Three well directed sticks hit him squarely and he wheeled, blind with rage, and charged the pigpen at the far end of the shed. Two boards split and an angry grunt came from the dirty white head that was thrust out to see what was doing.

"Polly Polly!" shrieked Aunt Patience, "you goin' ter stand there an' gawk while Bartholomew kills the pig?"

"He jest won't then!" cried Polly, furious at the thought. Grabbing a flatiron from the stove, she rushed out. Vengeance had driven. fear from her mind, but Bartholomew saw, and wheeled in her direction. The flatiron narrowly missed

his head-and Polly Maria, panicstricken at what she had and what she had not done, fled. With Bartholomew close at her heels, she scrambled to the top of an old bureau and from there to another woodpile. Bartholomew stamped and snorted, and Polly Maria sat down awkwardly and sobbed.

"Come, come, ladies," cried the peddler, peddler, trying to keep back a laugh. "Liven up a little! Just look on the bright side of thingsas I do. Now to pass the time away we might play games. Come, puss! come, puss, puss, puss, puss! $!"

"I think you're jest as mean as mean!" sobbed Polly Maria. "If the b-baby should cry, I couldn't-"

"Never mind; let him, if he does. It is great for the lungs-bound to make a singer out of him!"

"Look at that dratted ram!" shouted Aunt Patience suddenly. "He's gone inter the kitchen an' laid down front of the stove! Thank yer lucky stars, Polly Maria, thet yer locked the baby up!"

The three captives looked at each other miserably. Bartholomew had played his trump card and lay on the rug before the fire, listening for the slightest move in the woodshed.

At the least sound, his eyes opened wickedly, and he stood ready to take his trick. Disgusted, angry, cold and hungry, the trio waited there was nothing else to do. They waited one, two, nearly three, full hours. When Jeddy finally came, and saw-they had to wait some time longer, for him to recover from what nearly proved to be a fit of hysterics.

At bedtime, Aunt Patience applied salve and liniment freely, as she reviewed the events of the day.