like to coax the heart outen both of us. I told him--Dearie me,
somebody's calling at the front gate!"

"Mis' Mayberry! Oh, Mis' Mayberry!" came a high, quavering old voice
from around the corner of the house, and Squire Tutt hove in sight.
He was panting for breath and trembling with rage as he ascended the
steps and stood in the kitchen door.

Mother hastened to bring him a chair into which he wheezingly
subsided.

"Why, Squire," she questioned anxiously, "have anything happened? Is
Mis' Tutt tooken with lumbago again?"

"No!" exploded the Squire, "she's well--always is! I'm the only
really sick folks in Providence, though I don't git no respect for
it. In pain all the time and no respect--no respect!"

"Now, Squire, everybody in Providence have got sympathy for your
tisic, and just yesterday Mis' Pike was a-asking me--"

"Tisic! I ain't talking about tisic now! It's this pain in my
stomick that that young limb of satan of your'n insulted me about
not a hour ago. Me a-writhing in tormint with nothing less'n a
cancer--insulted me!" As the Squire projected his remark toward
Mother Mayberry he bent double and peered expectantly up into her
sympathetic face.

"Why, what did he do, Squire?" demanded Mother, with a glance at
Miss Wingate, who still stood at the biscuit block cutting out her