for a parting word of friendly gossip.

"Jacob pooty smart!" he asked, brushing a fly from Nancy's shoulder.

"Only middling," was the reply. "He had a touch o' rheumatiz, that last
spell of wet weather, and it seems to hang on, kind of. Ketches him in
the joints and the small of his back if he rises up suddin."

"I know! I know!" replied the station-master, with eager interest. "Jest
like my spells ketches me; on'y I have it powerful bad acrost my
shoulders, too. I been kerryin' a potato in my pocket f'r over and above
a week now, and I'm in hopes 't'll cure me."

"A potato in your pocket!" exclaimed Dame Hartley. "Reuel Slocum! what
_do_ you mean?"

"Sounds curus, don't it?" returned Mr. Slocum. "But it's a fact that
it's a great cure for rheumatiz. A grea-at cure! Why, there's Barzillay
Smith, over to Peat's Corner, has kerried a potato in his pocket for
five years,--not the same potato, y' know; changes 'em when they begin
to sprout,--and he hesn't hed a touch o' rheumatism all that time. Not a
touch! tol' me so himself."

"Had he ever hed it before?" asked Dame Hartley.

"I d'no as he hed," said Mr. Slocum, "But his father hed; an' his
granf'ther before him. So ye see--"

But here Hilda uttered a long sigh of weariness and impatience; and Dame
Hartley, with a penitent glance at her, bade good-morning to the victim