"I shouldn't wonder if he is a little," admitted Hiram. "But I am sure he is harmless."
"I don't know about that," she demurred. "He's altogether too quick to use a gun. A poor tramp came past here last summer—he never would have stopped, I guess, only he was out of breath completely—and Battick had blown his coat-tails off with a charge of rock-salt just because the hobo had gone into the yard of the old house and around to the well. That's the coldest water anywhere in Pringleton; but nobody ever gets a drink of it but Yancey Battick now."
"I suppose he's paid for it, Miss Pringle?" said Hiram quietly.
"I don't know that he has," was her quick reply. "At least, the neighbors blame me for selling the old place to such a man. They know I didn't need the money. And Yancey Battick certainly ain't what you can call with truth a good neighbor. We count on getting good neighbors into the Pringleton district if we can. That is why I was so glad to sell Sunnyside to Mr. Bronson.
"And do you really mean to tell me that you spent the night with Mr. Battick?" she added.
"And he did not eat me up," laughed Hiram.
"Well! All I've got to say, young man, is that you're a regular Daniel. You'd find it cozy and comfortable, I guess, in a lion's den. Never heard of anybody's even getting inside of the old house before since Battick got into it. He did let you inside, didn't he?"
"I don't look as though I had stayed out on that leaky old porch of his, do I?" asked Hiram, still much amused.
"You're as dry as a bone, as I said before."
"Not only did he entertain me for supper and breakfast, but he gave me his own bed in which to sleep."