with rising indignation. [Pg 188] "Dear Uncle Benny," he wrote. "I am unknown to you and you to me but your writings has made me feel as if we was old chums. I wanted to go to the city to have a chat with you but the boss he kicked. He says I might be took up for a lunatic if I went to the Observer asking for you. He[Pg 189] says there aint no such person and if there was he would be some young whip snap that would call the devil and the hoist man to run me out for thinking he was a old man like me. He says it aint none of my business how old you be and what you look like. He says your blame curiosity William might land you in the police cells. Now as far as I can make out you must be well up in years and you write darn good stories. Now I got one or two good stories about the boss that is too good to keep. He aint a regular farmer and he don't know much about working land. He says the way to make the farm pay is to keep from paying out money on it and when I tell him we need a implement he asks how much will it cost and when I tell him he puts that much in the bank and says we can do without. There aint a implement on the place but three. That shows what kind of a man he is but I ain't going to let him scare me off if you drop me a line to say you want to hear them stories. [Pg 189] "WILLIAM WEDDER." [Pg 190] [Pg 190] It was well that I was not within reach of William when I read his epistle, for my wrath would have descended upon him, but having time to think it over before I reached home I concluded to preserve my incognito by ignoring the matter; besides, I was exceptionally busy that week as Aunt Sophy's wedding was near at hand, and I could not afford to risk the loss of his services at such a time. As I neared the house that afternoon I heard loud voices in the yard, and when I got within sight I saw my hired man and Peter Waydean walking around each other in the attitude of quarrelsome dogs about to spring. "I tell you," snarled Peter, "them darn hens has been living on my field peas, and I believe you drove them over there in the first place." "And I tell you," snapped William, "your cattle has broke down the fence and got into my corn twice this week, and your blame hogs——" At this point I intervened. Peter claimed that his crop of peas had
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