pipe-stem."

"Ain't them curls nat'ral, Lucindy?" cried Mrs. Wilson. "Have you been
fixin' 'em to blow round your face that way, all these years?"

"I begun when I was a little girl," said Lucindy, guiltily. "It did
seem kind o' wrong, but I took real pleasure in it!"

Lothrop could bear no more. He wanted to wipe his eyes, but he chose
instead to walk straight out of the room and down to his shop. His wife
could only express a part of her amazement by demanding, in a futile
sort of way,--

"Where'd you get the pipe?"

"I stole the first one from a hired man we had," said Lucindy, her
cheeks growing pink. "Sometimes I had to use slate-pencils."

There was no one else to administer judgment, and Mrs. Wilson felt the
necessity.

"Well," she began, "an' you can set there, tellin' that an' smilin'--"

"My smilin' don't mean any more'n some other folks' cryin', I guess,"
said Lucindy, smiling still more broadly. "I begun that more'n thirty
years ago. I looked into the glass one day, and I see the corners of my
mouth were goin' down. Sharper 'n, vinegar, I was! So I says to myself,
'I can smile, whether or no. Nobody can't help that!' And I did, and
now I guess I don't know when I do it."