don't talk to the neighbors, Jabe; and if you haven't got anything
special on hand to-day, I wish you'd patch the roof of the summer house
and dig us a mess of beet greens. Keep the children with you, and see
what you make of 'em; they're playin' in the garden now."

"All right. I'll size 'em up the best I ken, tho' mebbe it'll hender me
in my work some; but time was made for slaves, as the molasses said when
they told it to hurry up in winter time."

Two hours later, Miss Vilda looked from the kitchen window and saw Jabez
Slocum coming across the road from the garden. Timothy trudged beside
him, carrying the basket of greens in one hand, and the other locked in
Jabe's huge paw; his eyes upturned and shining with pleasure, his lips
moving as if he were chattering like a magpie. Lady Gay was just where
you might have expected to find her, mounted on the towering height of
Jabe's shoulder, one tiny hand grasping his weather-beaten straw hat,
while with the other she whisked her willing steed with an alder switch
which had evidently been cut for that purpose by the victim himself.

"That's the way he's sizin' of 'em up," said Samantha, leaning over
Vilda's shoulder with a smile. "I'll bet they've sized him up enough
sight better 'n he has them!"

Jabe left the children outside, and came in with the basket. Putting his
hat in the wood-box and hitching up his trousers impressively, he sat
down on the settle.

"Them ain't no children to be wanderin' about the earth afoot 'n' alone,
'same 's Hitty went to the beach;' nor they ain't any common truck ter
be put inter 'sylums 'n' poor-farms. There's some young ones that's so