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But he found neighbor Johnson to be supplied with another variety of bitter, which was all he needed for the present. He qualified his refusal to buy with a cordial invitation to go out and see his shotes, in which he took infinite pride. But Uncle Ripley said: “I guess I’ll haf t’ be goin’; I want ‘o git up to Jennings’ before dinner.”

He couldn’t help feeling a little depressed when he found Jennings away. The next house along the pleasant lane was inhabited by a “new-comer.” He was sitting on the horse-trough, holding a horse’s halter, while his hired man dashed cold water upon the galled spot on the animal’s shoulder.

After some preliminary talk Ripley presented his medicine.

“Hell, no! What do I want of such stuff? When they’s anything the matter with me, I take a lunkin’ ol’ swig of popple-bark and bourbon. That fixes me.”

Uncle Ethan moved off up the lane. He hardly felt like whistling now. At the next house he set his pail down in the weeds beside the fence, and went in without it. Doudney came to the door in his bare feet, buttoning his suspenders over a clean boiled shirt. He was dressing to go out.

“Hello, Ripley. I was just goin’ down your way. Jest wait a minute an’ I’ll be out.”

When he came out fully dressed, Uncle Ethan grappled him. “Say, what d’ you think o’ paytent med”—-

“Some of ’em are boss. But y’ want ‘o know what y’re gitt’n’.”

“What d’ ye think o’ Dodd’s”—-

“Best in the market.”

Uncle Ethan straightened up and his face lighted. Doudney went on:

“Yes, sir; best bitter that ever went into a bottle. I know, I’ve tried it. I don’t go much on patent medicines, but when I get a good”—-

“Don’t want ‘o buy a bottle?”

Doudney turned and faced him.

“Buy! No. I’ve got nineteen bottles I want ‘o sell.” Ripley glanced up at Doudney’s new granary and there read “Dodd’s Family Bitters.” He was stricken dumb. Doudney saw it all and roared.

“Wal, that’s a good one! We two tryin’ to sell each other bitters. Ho–ho–ho–har, whoop! wal, this is rich! How many bottles did you git?”

“None o’ your business,” said Uncle Ethan, as he turned and made off, while Doudney screamed with merriment.

On his way home Uncle Ethan grew ashamed of his burden. Doudney had canvassed the whole neighborhood, and he practically gave up the struggle. Everybody he met seemed determined to find out what he had been doing, and at last he began lying about it.

“Hello, Uncle Ripley, what y’ got there in that pail?”

“Goose eggs f’r settin’.”

He disposed of one bottle to old Gus Peterson. Gus never paid his debts, and he would only promise fifty cents “on tick” for the bottle, and yet so desperate was Ripley that this quasi sale cheered him up not a little.

As he came down the road, tired, dusty and hungry, he climbed over the fence in order to avoid seeing that sign on the barn, and slunk into the house without looking back.

He couldn’t have felt meaner about it if he had allowed a Democratic poster to be pasted there.

The evening passed in grim silence, and in sleep he saw that sign wriggling across the side of the barn like boa-constrictors hung on rails. He tried to paint them out, but every time he tried it the man seemed to come back with a sheriff, and savagely warned him to let it stay till the year was up. In some mysterious way the agent seemed to know every time he brought out the paint-pot, and he was no longer the pleasant-voiced individual who drove the calico ponies.

As he stepped out into the yard next morning, that abominable, sickening, scrawling advertisement was the first thing that claimed his glance–it blotted out the beauty of the morning.

Mrs. Ripley came to the window, buttoning her dress at the throat, a whisp of her hair sticking assertively from the little knob at the back of her head.