the stump he was bowed on till, observing them, he began
to wonder whether he could cry enough to make a pond
there, and was presently disappointed to find the source
exhausted. The Murchisons were all imaginative.

The others, Oliver and Abby and Stella, still "tormented."
Poor Alec's rights--to a present of pocket-money on the
Queen's Birthday--were common ones, and almost statutory.
How their father, sitting comfortably with his pipe in
the flickering May shadows under the golden pippin,
reading the Toronto paper, could evade his liability in
the matter was unfathomable to the Murchisons; it was
certainly illiberal; they had a feeling that it was
illegal. A little teasing was generally necessary, but
the resistance today had begun to look ominous and Alec,
as we know, too temerarious, had retired in disorder to
the woodpile.

Oliver was wiping Advena's dishes. He exercised himself
ostentatiously upon a plate, standing in the door to be
within earshot of his father.

"Eph Wheeler," he informed his family, "Eph Wheeler, he's
got twenty-five cents, an' a English sixpence, an' a
Yankee nickel. An' Mr Wheeler's only a common working
man, a lot poorer'n we are."

Mr Murchison removed his pipe from his lips in order,
apparently, to follow unimpeded the trend of the Dominion's
leading article. Oliver eyed him anxiously. "Do, Father,"