"For the land's sake!" Miss Pringle shook her head in wonder. Then her brown eyes suddenly snapped. All the inquisitiveness in the woman's nature came to the surface; perhaps it was her single sin. "What's he got in that house he's so afraid the neighbors might see, Mr. Strong?"
"I did not see anything particularly mysterious—nothing at all," Hiram assured her.
"Not a thing? Wasn't he trying to hide anything from you? Didn't he seem afraid of anything?"
"He certainly has a great fear of rats," Hiram admitted, answering her second query but avoiding the first. "And he has good reason to. He shot a big fellow right there in the house while we sat before the fire."
"You don't say!"
"If it was me I'd get me a weasel and turn him loose in the house and then pour cement and broken glass in the rat holes."
"He knew the rats were there when he bought the old homestead," declared Miss Pringle defensively.
"And I guess he has a right to shoot them if he wishes to," laughed Hiram.
"But he is too promiscuous with his shotgun," declared the woman, shaking her head. "Well, now, Mr. Strong, I'm sorry you did not reach my house. I—and Abigail Wentworth who lives with me—would have been glad to put you up. But I am glad you made out as well as you did at Mr. Battick's. I'm glad to know he's not so bad as we all thought him."
"Perhaps the neighbors haven't approached him just right," Hiram suggested. "He wishes to be let alone."