out on foot for the "Corner," two miles away.

"He's a queer duck," and Sam jerked his thumb back to show that he
meant Si Lee; "sounds like a Chinese laundry. I guess that's the only
thing he isn't. He can do any mortal thing but get on in life. He's
been a soldier an' a undertaker an' a cook He plays a fiddle he made
himself; it's a rotten bad one, but it's away ahead of his playing. He
stuffs birds--that Owl in the parlour is his doin'; he tempers razors,
kin doctor a horse or fix up a watch, an' he does it in about the same
way, too; bleeds a horse no matter what ails it, an' takes another
wheel out o' the watch every times he cleans it. He took Larry de
Neuville's old clock apart to clean once--said he knew all about
it--an' when he put it together again he had wheels enough left over
for a new clock.

"He's too smart an' not smart enough. There ain't anything on earth
he can't do a little, an' there ain't a blessed thing that he can do
right up first-class, but thank goodness sewing canvas is his long
suit. You see he was a sailor for three years--longest time he ever
kept a job, fur which he really ain't to blame, since it was a whaler
on a three-years' cruise."




VII

The Calm Evening