time Deacon Bassett has been here to see you, and he's coming again;
and what be I to say to him next time he comes? You can't go through
life without seeing folks, you know."

Don Alonzo shook his shoulders, and pretended to look for dust on
his coat. He would have been deeply mortified to find any, for he
took care of his own room, and prided himself, with reason, on its
neatness. Also, the space beneath his bedstead was cupboard as well
as hiding-place.

"He troubles me," he said, meekly. "Deacon Bassett troubles me more
than any of 'em. Did he ask if I'd grown any?"

"Well, he did," Mira admitted. "But I expect he didn't mean anything
by it."

"He's asked that ever since I can remember," said Don Alonzo;
"and I'm weary of it. There! And then he says that if I would only
take his Green Elixir three times a day for three months, I'd grow
like a sapling willow. He hopes to make his living out of me, yet!"

Mrs. Pitkin laughed, comfortably, and smoothed the lad's hair back
with a motherly touch. "All the same," she said, "you must quit
hiding under the bed when folks come to call, Don 'Lonzo. You don't
want 'em to think I treat you bad, and keep you out o' sight, so's
they'll not find it out." Then, seeing the boy's face flush with
distress, she added, hastily, "Besides, you're getting to be 'most a
man now; I want strangers should know there's men-folks about the
place, now Joe's away. There's burglars in town, Don 'Lonzo, and we
must look out and keep things shut up close, nights."