CHAPTER V

A REMINISCENCE

"It is easy enough to be pleasant
When life flows along like a song,
But the man worth while is the one who will smile
When everything goes dead wrong."

WHEN Miss Hazy was awakened early that morning by a resonant neigh
at the head of her bed, she mistook it for the trump of doom. Miss
Hazy's cottage, as has been said, was built on the bias in the
Wiggses' side yard, and the little lean-to, immediately behind Miss
Hazy's bedroom, had been pressed into service as Cuba's temporary
abiding-place.

After her first agonized fright, the old woman ventured to push the
door open a crack and peep out.

"Chris," she said, in a tense whisper, to her sleeping nephew--
"Chris, what on airth is this here hitched to our shutter?"

Chris, usually deaf to all calls less emphatic than cold water and a
broomstick, raised a rumpled head from the bed-clothes.

"Where at?" he asked.

"Right here!" said Miss Hazy, still in a terrified whisper, and
holding fast the door, as if the specter might attempt an entrance.
Chris did not stop to adjust his wooden leg, but hopped over to the