come to think o' it, it 's all for the best jus' the way 't it 's come
out. The baby 'd 'a' grown up an' gone off somewhere, an' the lion 'll
stay right where you put him, for he 's so heavy that the monument man
says we 'll have to drive piles all down aroun' father. Then, too,
maybe I could n't 'a' managed a boy an' I can scour that lion all I
want to. 'N' I will scour him too,--nobody need n't suppose 't I've
paid three hunderd dollars f'r anythin' to let it get mossy. I've
invited the monument man 'n' his wife to come 'n' visit me while he's
gettin' the lion in place, 'n' he says he's so pleased over me 'n'
nobody else gettin' it 't he's goin' to give me a paper sayin' 't when
I die he'll chop my date in f'r nothin'. I tell you what, Mrs.
Lathrop, I certainly am glad 't I've got the sense to know when I'm
well off, 'n' I cert'nly do feel that in this particular case I'm
mighty lucky. So all 's well 't ends well."

Mrs. Lathrop nodded.




III

JATHROP LATHROP'S COW


Jathrop Lathrop was just the style and build of young man to be easily
persuaded into taking a kicking cow in full payment of a good debt.
Jathrop having taken the cow, it naturally fell to the lot of his
mother to milk her. The reader can quickly divine what event formed
the third of these easily to be foreseen developments of the most