"That's old Mis' Sturtevant's critter again! She's no right to turn it loose to feed along the street, that-a-way. Course, she's set Monty to watch, an' he's gone off a-fishin'. That's as plain as a pike-staff. Pshaw! Folks so poor they can't feed their stawk hain't a right to keep any, I declare! When I get to be constable I'll straighten some things in Marsden township that's terrible crooked now; an' the very first one I'd complain of or arrest would be that lazy little stutterin' Monty Sturtevant!"
"W-w-w-wo-would it?"
The voice came from beneath the white lilac bush, but it seemed to come from the earth, and Katharine, at the just opened sitting-room chamber window, saw the whole affair, and laughed aloud.
Her laughter startled the intruder as much as he had startled Moses, and he came out of hiding, demanding:
"W-w-who's t-t-that? Aunt Eu-Eu-Eu-Eunice got comp-p-pany?"
"Yes. But that's no concern of yours," snapped the hired man, "and you best go 'tend your cow;" finishing his advice with a threatening nod.
"Oh, f-f-f-fudge! Wait till you get to be co-co-constable, then shake your h-head. W-w-who is it, I say?"
"I hain't been told, but I 'low she's some cousin forty-times-removed to Eunice, come to sponge a livin' out of us. But she needn't worry you none. She hain't come to your house to upset things."
"G-g-glad of it!" returned this ungallant young Marsdenite. "But say, Un-un-uncle M-Mose."
"Now, Monty, none o' that. I know what's afoot when any you boys begin to 'uncle' me, an' I say 'No.' I ain't goin' to give up my night's rest for a fishin'-trip. You hear me?"