[Pg 42] "I am sorry to hear that," said Mollie. "I love music." "Well," said the old man, generously, "you can have my share. Whenever anybody brings any music around where I am hereafter, I'll do it up in a package, and send it to you." "Thank you very much," said Mollie. "It's very good of you." "Oh, it's no favor to you, I am sure!" put in the Unwiseman, hastily. "In fact, it's the other way. I'm obliged to you for taking it off my hands. If you want to you can open the piano right away, and take out all the tunes there are in it. I'll go off on the mountains while you are doing it, so that it won't annoy me any." "Oh, no!" said Mollie. "I'd a great deal rather have you to talk to than all the tunes in the piano." "Very well," said the old man, with a smile of pleasure. "What shall we talk about, frogs?" [Pg 43] [Pg 43] "I don't know anything about frogs," said Mollie. "Neither do I," returned the Unwiseman. "I don't know the difference between a frog and a watch-chain, except that one chains watches and the other doesn't, but which does and which doesn't I haven't a notion." "I see you have all your pictures with their faces turned to the wall," said Mollie, looking about the room again so as to avoid laughing in the Unwiseman's face. "What is that for?" "That's to make them more interesting," replied the Unwiseman. "They're a very uninteresting lot of pictures, and I never could get anybody to look at 'em until I turned them hind side before, that way. Now everybody wants to see them." Mollie rose up, and turned one of them about so that she could see it. "It's very pretty," she said. "What is it a picture of—a meadow?" [Pg 44] [Pg 44]
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