wards better, or realized the father's present mood. Hurt exceedingly by Jim's lying and contempt of his wishes, hurt even more through his disappointed desire to help his boy, Mr. Edwards was sore and sensitive, discontented both with Jim and with himself. He did not want Jim in jail, he told himself; and the neighbors who were so uniformly assuming that he did might better give their thoughts to matters that concerned them more. He would get the boy out of jail quick enough if the boy would only let him.

   As he stepped out of the house to do an errand at the barn, Mr. Peaslee

   hailed him over the dividing fence. Somewhat put out, Mr. Edwards nevertheless turned and walked toward his neighbor. Mr. Peaslee, leaning over the fence, began.

   "Ed'ards," he said, reaching out an anxious, deprecatory hand, "don't ye think you're jest a leetle mite hard on that boy o' yourn—"

   He got no further. Edwards gave him a look that made him shiver, and cut the conversation short by turning on his heel and marching toward the barn.

   "Dretful ha'sh man, dretful ha'sh!" Mr. Peaslee muttered to himself. "Nice, likely boy as ever was. If I

   had a boy like that, I swan I wouldn't treat him so con-sarned mean!"

   He turned away much shocked, and saw the Calico Cat watching him ironically from the chicken-house. "Drat that cat!" said he. "I ain't goin' to stay round here—not with that beast grinning at me."

   He got his hat and started up-town, not knowing in the least what he intended to do there. He stopped, however, at every shop window and studied baseballs, bats, tivoli-boards, accordions. He was beginning to wonder if a twenty-five-cent knife was enough to console Jim for his unmerited incarceration.

   He was gazing forlornly in at the window of Upham's drugstore, where some half-dozen harmonicas were displayed, and wondering if Jim would be allowed to play one in his dungeon cell, when Hibbard spoke to him.

   He drew the lawyer aside, and, peering closely into his face with anxious eyes exaggerated by his spectacles, said insinuatingly:—

   "Jest 'twixt you and me kinder confidential, Pete ain't hurt bad, is he? You don't mind sayin', do ye?"

   Jake drew himself up, surprised and suspicious. Did the old fool think him as innocent as all that?

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