got any more get up and get to them than Noah's old gray mule that had to
be shoved off the Ark."

Mr. Robbins had invited the erstwhile prisoner to accompany them, but he
had decided instead to keep on his way to the old Inn on the hill above
the village, much to Jean and Helen's disappointment.

Helen had discovered that his first name was Stanley, which relieved her
mind considerably.

"If it had been Abijah or Silas, I know I could never have forgiven him
for getting in the berry patch," she said, "but there is something
promising about Stanley. Seems as if he lit like Mercury just when there
wasn't anything happening here at all."

"Wonder if I turned out that oil stove," Mrs. Gorham said thoughtfully.
"Seems like I smell something. Shad," raising her voice, "do you get up
and go out in that 'ell' room and see if I turned out that fire under the
syrup. I smell smoke."

"Oh, Lord," groaned Shad, laying aside his cherished instrument. "You
could smell ice if you half tried."

He got up lumberingly and sauntered out through the kitchen into the long
lean-to addition, that was used as a summer kitchen now, and the moment he
opened the door there poured out a thick volume of black smoke and flying
soot. The old-fashioned oil stove had a way of letting its wicks "work
up," as Shad said, if left too long to its own devices.

There was a spurt of flame from the woodwork behind the stove, and Shad