As he advanced he held out his hand. "Oh, you're the one that stopped
that fellow that day when he was tryin' to scare my children. Well, I
thought I should run across you some time." He shook hands with Westover,
in token of the gratitude which did not express itself in words. "How are
you? Treat you pretty well up at the Durgins'? I guess so. The old woman
knows how to cook, anyway. Jackson's about the best o' the lot above
ground, though I don't know as I know very much against the old man,
either. But that boy! I declare I 'most feel like takin' the top of his
head off when he gets at his tricks. Set down."

Whitwell, as Westover divined the man to be, took a seat himself on a
high stump, which suited his length of leg, and courteously waved
Westover to a place on the log in front of him. A long, ragged beard of
brown, with lines of gray in it, hung from his chin and mounted well up
on his thin cheeks toward his friendly eyes. His mustache lay sunken on
his lip, which had fallen in with the loss of his upper teeth. From the
lower jaw a few incisors showed at this slant and that as he talked.

"Well, well!" he said, with the air of wishing the talk to go on, but
without having anything immediately to offer himself.

Westover said, "Thank you," as he dropped on the log, and Whitwell added,
relentingly: "I don't suppose a fellow's so much to blame, if he's got
the devil in him, as what the devil is."

He referred the point with a twinkle of his eyes to Westover, who said:
"It's always a question, of course, whether it's the devil. It may be
original sin with the fellow himself."

"Well, that's something so," said Whitwell, with pleasure in the