clean his fish there. But one day Aunt Stanshy cleaned him out, and when
Stanshy starts on a cleanin' tour, she makes thorough work of it, and puts
things through promptly. And she did clean out old Tim! But I must go back
and hitch the horse into the cart, and say what you know as well as I,
that your Aunt Stanshy is a great teetotaler, a leetle too much I think."
[Simes liked his nip.] "But seein' how her minister's in favor of it, she
is wuss than ever. Now to go on. Your father, boy, let me say, had a hand
in this trouble, though not meaningly, and it was this way. Tour father
came to live with your Aunt Stanshy, and one day Tim took him out
a-fishin', and not only tipped a jug to his own lips, but sot it to your
father's also. When they came back home, it was plain they had been up to
suthin' besides fishin'. Well, Tim might as well have touched a lion's
whip--what do you call it?"

"Whelp. I was reading about lions to-day."

"Yes, touched a lion's whelp as touched your father; for didn't Aunt
Stanshy pitch into him! I heard it all. It was when he was a-splittin'
fish, and Aunt Stanshy came out, and didn't she walk into Tim! I never see
an eel skinned more purtily than she dressed Tim for temptin' a poor,
motherless boy, as she called your father. 'Don't!' your father would go,
tryin' to pacify her; 'don't!' It had no more effect than tryin' to fan
out of the way a tornader. Indeed, jest because she and Tim had been on
good terms with one another and understood one another so well, I think
for that reason she was all the hotter. You know when brothers do quarrel,
they go it wuss than other folks. Well, Tim at fust would say nothing but
he was orful mad. He was that kind of mad that you see in the sky when a
thunder-storm is brewin', and yet no rain has fallen; only the flash is
there, and the thunder is there a-rumblin', and the lightnin' is there a
sawin' up and down, but nary a drop of rain! At last Tim spoke, and he