"He certainly does, now, have pecooliar views," agreed the doctor. "I was talkin' to him this after—"
"You WAS!" exclaimed Amanda, a note of chagrin in her voice. "Well, I'd like to know where at? Where had he took himself to?"
"Up to the woods there by the old mill. I come on him there at five o'clock—layin' readin' and musin'—when I was takin' a short cut home through the woods comin' from Adam Oberholzer's."
"Well I never!" cried Amanda. "And was he out there all by hisself the whole afternoon?" she asked incredulously.
"So much as I know. AIN'T he, now, a queer feller not to want a girl along when one was so handy?" teased the doctor.
"Well," retorted Amanda, "I think he's hard up—to be spendin' a whole afternoon READIN'!"
"Oh, Doc!" Tillie leaned forward and whispered, "he's up in his room and perhaps he can hear us through the register!"
"I wisht he KIN," declared Amanda, "if it would learn him how dumm us folks thinks a feller where spends a whole Sunday afternoon by hisself READIN'!"
"Why, yes," put in Mrs. Wackernagel; "what would a body be wantin' to waste time like that fur?—when he could of spent his nice afternoon settin' there on the porch with us all, conwersin'."
"And he's at it ag'in this evenin', up there in his room," the doctor informed them. "I went up to give him my lamp, and I'm swanged if he ain't got a many books and such pamp'lets in his room! As many as ten, I guess! I tole him: I says, 'It does, now, beat all the way you take to them books and pamp'lets and things!'"