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“Didn’t make no blunder–yuh couldn’t confuse him.
A perfect wonder, yuh had to choose him!”

The schoolma’am was addicted to coon songs of the period.

She seemed to be very busy about something and Weary, craning his neck to see over her shoulder, wondered what. Also, he wished he knew what she was thinking about, and he hoped her thoughts were not remote from himself. Just then Glory showed unmistakable and malicious intentions of sneezing, and Weary, catching a glimpse of something in Miss Satterly’s hand, hastened to make his presence known.

“I hope yuh aren’t limbering up that weapon of destruction on my account, Schoolma’am,” he observed mildly.

The schoolma’am jumped and slid something out of sight under her ruffled, white apron. “Weary Davidson, how long have you been standing there? I believe you’d come straight down from the sky or straight up from the ground, if you could manage it. You seem capable of doing everything except coming by the trail like a sensible man.” This with severity.

Weary swung a long leg over Glory’s back and came lightly to earth, immediately taking possession of the vacant half of doorstep. The schoolma’am obligingly drew skirts aside to make room for him–an inconsistent movement not at all in harmony with her eyebrows, which were disapproving.

“Yuh don’t like ordinary men. Yuh said so, once when I said I was just a plain, ordinary man. I’ve sworn off being ordinary since yuh gave me that tip,” he said cheerfully. “Let’s have a look at that cannon you’re hiding under your apron. Where did yuh resurrect it? Out of some old Indian grave?

“Mamma! It won’t go off sudden and unexpected, will it? What kind uh shells–oh, mamma!” He pushed his hat back off his forehead with a gesture not left behind with his boyhood, held the object the length of his long arm away and regarded it gravely.

It was an old, old “bull-dog” revolver, freckled with rust until it bore a strong resemblance to certain noses which Miss Satterly looked down upon daily. The cylinder was plugged with rolls of drab cotton cloth, supposedly in imitation of real bullets. It was obviously during the plugging process that Miss Satterly had been interrupted, for a drab string hung limply from one hole. On the whole, the thing did not look particularly formidable, and Weary’s lips twitched.

“A tramp stopped here the other day, and–I was frightened a little,” she was explaining, pink-cheeked. “So aunt Meeker found this up in the loft and she thought it would do to–to bluff with.”

Weary aimed carefully at a venturesome and highly inquisitive gopher and pulled, with some effort, the rusted trigger. The gopher stood upon his hind feet and chipped derisively.

“You see, it just insults him. Yuh could’nt scare a blind man with it– Look here! If yuh go pouting up your lips like that again, something’s going to happen ’em. There’s a limit to what a man can stand.”

Miss Satterly hastily drew her mouth into a thin, untempting, red streak, for she had not seen Weary Davidson, on an average, twice a week for the last four months for nothing. He was not the man to bluff.

“Of course,” she said resentfully, “you can make fun of it–but all the same, it’s better than nothing. It answers the purpose.”

Weary turned his head till he could look straight into her eyes–a thing he seemed rather fond of doing, lately. “What purpose? It sure isn’t ornamental; it’s a little the hardest looker I ever saw in the shape of a gun. And it won’t scare anything. If you want a gun, why, take one that can make good. You can have mine; just watch what a different effect it has.”