"'Cain't I have it? Cain't I have it? Cain't yeh send it down the flume? Please say yeh will. I'll take the best kind o' keer of it. It sha'n't git a single scratch.'
"Mr. Sneath he looks at her a minute kinder tender-like, an' I knowed them big eyes o' hern was a-doin' their work. Them big soft baby eyes would 'a' drawed sap outer a dead log.
"'Wal,' says he, 'we'll see. If Mrs. Sneath's willin' I guess it'll be all right.'
"'Thank you, thank you, thank you!' she yells as the boat flies down the flume.
"I seed Jud blow a kiss to her, an' I knowed she was happy as a bird. She was a-singin' aroun' the shanty all day, an' at supper she done nothin' but talk, talk, talk about that there pianner.
"'Don't be so awful gay, Miss. Hemenway,' says I, for I was afeard she might be disapp'inted. 'Yeh ain't got it yet. Yeh know, Mr. Sneath's a' awful busy man, an' he may fergit it.'
"'Oh, he won't fergit! Jud'll poke him up on it,' says she. 'An' I think I'll have it put right over there in that corner. No, that's on the flume side, an' it might draw dampness there. Over there by the winder's the place, an' plenty o' light, too. Wonder if they'll think to send down a stool.'
"I had to skin up to Skyland nex' day. Jud says the soop'rintendent has to light out quicker'n he'd thought, but he didn't fergit about the pianner. Mis' Sneath was as easy as greased skids, but Mr. Sneath he didn't know exactly. He sends the pianner over to the warehouse there 'longside the flume an' has the men slap together a stout boat to run her down in; but at the las' minute he backs out. He was a-lookin' at the pianner standin' there in the warehouse, an' he says to Jud, says he:
"'That there pianner has be'n in our family ever sence we was married. Marthy allus sot a heap o' store by that pianner. It was my first present to her, an' I know she thinks a hull lot of it, even if she don't seem ter keer. Trouble is, she don't know what sendin' it down the flume means. Yeh see, it ain't like a long string o' lumber—weight's all in one place, an' she might break through. This flume ain't what it was thirteen years ago, yeh know.'
"Jud he argies with him, 'cos he knows Jess's heart'll be broke if she don't git the pianner; an' after a while he thinks he's got it all fixed; but jest afore Sneath an' his wife takes the stage he telaphones down to the warehouse to let the pianner stay there till he comes back. Then he goes away, an' Jud is as down in the mouth as if he'd run his fist ag'in' a band-saw. He mopes aroun' all day, an' he's afeard to tell Jess; but as I was a-goin' back to Five that night, he tells me to break it to her gentle-like an' say he'd done his best. Which I did. Wal, that gal jest howls when I tells her, an' sobs an' sobs an' takes on like a baby coyote with the croup. But her dad he quiets her at last.