“I’m just what I be an’ I ain’t so big a fool that I need to be reminded of it,” said my uncle.

“I’ll stay at home an’ work,” I proposed bravely.

“You ain’t old enough for that,” sighed Aunt Deel.

“I want to keep you in school,” said Uncle Peabody, who sat making a splint broom.

While we were talking in walked Benjamin Grimshaw—­the rich man of the hills.  He didn’t stop to knock but walked right in as if the house were his own.  It was common gossip that he held a mortgage on every acre of the countryside.  I had never liked him, for he was a stern-eyed man who was always scolding somebody, and I had not forgotten what his son had said of him.

“Good night!” he exclaimed curtly, as he sat down and set his cane between his feet and rested his hands upon it.  He spoke hoarsely and I remember the curious notion came to me that he looked like our old ram.  The stern and rugged face of Mr. Grimshaw and the rusty gray of his homespun and the hoarseness of his tone had suggested this thought to me.  The long silvered tufts above his keen, gray eyes moved a little as he looked at my uncle.  There were deep lines upon his cheeks and chin and forehead.  He wore a thin, gray beard under his chin.  His mouth was shut tight in a long line curving downward a little at the ends.  My uncle used to say that his mouth was made to keep his thoughts from leaking and going to waste.  He had a big body, a big chin, a big mouth, a big nose and big ears and hands.  His eyes lay small in this setting of bigness.

“Why, Mr. Grimshaw, it’s years since you’ve been in our house—­ayes!” said Aunt Deel.

“I suppose it is,” he answered rather sharply.  “I don’t have much time to get around.  I have to work.  There’s some people seem to be able to git along without it.”

He drew in his breath quickly and with a hissing sound after every sentence.

“How are your folks?” my aunt asked.

“So’s to eat their allowance—­there’s never any trouble about that,” said Mr. Grimshaw.  “I see you’ve got one o’ these newfangled stoves,” he added as he looked it over.  “Huh!  Rich folks can have anything they want.”

Uncle Peabody had sat splintering the long stick of yellow birch.  I observed that the jackknife trembled in his hand.  His tone had a touch of unnaturalness, proceeding no doubt from his fear of the man before him, as he said: 

“When I bought that stove I felt richer than I do now.  I had almost enough to settle with you up to date, but I signed a note for a friend and had to pay it.”

“Ayuh!  I suppose so,” Grimshaw answered in a tone of bitter irony which cut me like a knife-blade, young as I was.  “What business have you signin’ notes an’ givin’ away money which ain’t yours to give—­I’d like to know?  What business have you actin’ like a rich man when you can’t pay yer honest debts?  I’d like to know that, too?”

“If I’ve ever acted like a rich man it’s been when I wa’n’t lookin’,” said Uncle Peabody.