"Uh, uh!" she teased him, as though she were playing with a baby.

Smith grew peevish. "Gol darn it, I tell you I ain't!" And he gave his
chair a rapid twirl.

"Boo!" came from Lucia softly. She laughed, and ran up the tiny stone
stairs that led to her room.

"Boo, yourself!" called out Uncle Henry, determined to have the last word,
as Lucia disappeared. Then he turned querulously on his nephew, as soon as
he was certain she was out of hearing. "Why did you ever invite 'em to stay
here in the first place?" he wanted to know. The sound of "Red's" harmonica
was heard outside.

"Because there was no decent hotel anywhere near. I couldn't do less than
offer them what little hospitality I had, could I, when Sturgis suggested
it?"

But his uncle didn't agree with him at all. "You could have done a whole
lot less," he decided. "You could have invited 'em to keep on going. Comin'
here at a time like this, and not only eatin' us out of house and home, but
drinkin' up the last bottle of liquor in the world!" This seemed to him the
culminating tragedy. When his nephew said nothing at all, he asked,
petulantly, "Well, what are you going to do? That's what I want to know."

"What can I do?"

"Do you mean to say you're going to set here and get throwed out into the
street and not even try to do something?"