“If it wants to feel perfectly comfortable it has!” said Jack, by way of welcome.

“Well, I’m the fat man of Little Rivers, name being Bob Worther!” said he, grinning as he came across the room with an amazingly quick, easy step.

“No rivals?” inquired Jack.

“No, seh!  I staked out the first claim and I’ve an eye out for any new-comers over the two hundred mark.  I warn them off!  Jasper Ewold is up to two hundred, but he doesn’t count.  Why, you ought to have seen me, seh, before I came to this valley!”

“A living skeleton?”

“No, seh!  Back in Alabama I had reached a point where I broke so many chairs and was getting so nervous from sudden falls in the midst of conversation, when I made a lively gesture that I didn’t dare sit down away from home except at church, where they had pews.  I weighed three hundred and fifty!”

“And now?”

“I acknowledge two hundred and forty, including my legs, which are very powerful, having worked off that extra hundred.  I’ve got the boss job for making a fat man spider-waisted—­inspector of ditches and dams.  Any other man would have to use a horse, but I hoof it, and that’s economy all around.  And being big I grow big things.  Violets wouldn’t be much more in my line than drawnwork.  I’ve got this whole town beat on peonies and pumpkins.  Being as it’s a fat man’s pleasure to cheer people up, I dropped in to bring you a few peonies and to say that, considering the few well-selected words you spoke to Pete Leddy on this town’s behalf, I’m prepared to vote for you for anything from coroner to president, seh!”

Later, after Bob had gone, a small girl brought a spray of gladiolus, their slender stems down to her toe-tips and the opening blossoms half hiding her face.  Jack insisted on having them laid across his knee She was not a fairy out of a play, as he knew by her conversation.

“Mister, did you yell when you was hit?” she asked.

Jack considered thoughtfully.  It would not do to be vagarious under such a shrewd examination; he must be exact.

“No, I don’t think I did.  I was too busy.”

“I’ll bet you wanted to, if you hadn’t been so busy.  Did it hurt much?”

“Not so very much.”

“Maybe that was why you didn’t yell.  Mother says that all you can see is a little black spot—­except you can’t see it for the bandages.  Is that the way yours is?”

“I believe so.  In fact, I’ll tell you a secret:  That’s the fashion in wounds.”

“Mother will be glad to know she’s right.  She sets a lot by her opinion, does mother.  Say, do you like plums?”

Jack already had a peck of plums, but another peck would not add much to the redundancy as far as he was concerned.