“I swan!” admitted her husband in a feeble voice.  “I forgot again, didn’t I?”

“I don’t know as you forgot, but I know you mighty near sneezed your head off.  You’ll be the death of me some day, Ira, blowin’ up that way.  I wonder I didn’t jump clean through the bottom of that feed box when I was just reaching down to get a measure of oats.”

“Aunt Prue,” Tunis interposed, “why do you keep the little tad of feed you have to buy for Queenie in this big old chest?”

“There!” Cap’n Ira hastened to rejoin, glad likewise to turn the trend of conversation.  “That’s all that dratted boy’s doings, little John-Ed Williams.  Who else would have ever thought of dumping a two-bushel bag of oats into a twenty-bushel bin?  We always put feed in that covered can yonder, so as to keep shet of the rats.  But that boy, when he brought the oats, dumped ’em into the box before I could stop him.  He’s got less sense than his father; and you know, Tunis, John-Ed himself ain’t got much more wit than the law allows.”

“But if you hadn’t sneezed—­” began Prudence again.

“You take her into the house, Cap’n Ira,” said Tunis.  “I’ll feed Queenie.  What do you give her—­this measure full of oats?  And a hank of that hay?”

“And a bunch of fodder.  Might as well give her a dinner while you’re about it,” grumbled the old man, leading his tottering wife toward the door.  “As I say, that old critter is eatin’ her head off.”

“Well, she long ago earned her keep in her old age,” Tunis said, laughing.

He could remember when the Queen of Sheba had come to the Ball barn as a colt.  Many a clandestine bareback ride had he enjoyed.  He fed the mare and petted her as if she were his own.  Then he scraped the oats out of the bin and poured them into the galvanized-iron can, so that Cap’n Ira could more easily get at the mare’s feed.

He went to the house afterward to see if there was any other little chore he could do for the old couple before going on to his own home.

“You can’t do much for us, Tunis, unless you can furnish me a new pair of legs,” said Cap’n Ira.  “I might as well have timber ones as these I’ve got.  What Prue and me needs is what you’ve got but can’t give away—­youth.”

“You ought to have somebody living with you to help, Cap’n Ira,” said the young man.

“I cal’late,” said the other dryly, “that we’ve already made that discovery, Tunis.  Trouble is, we ain’t fixed right to increase the pay roll.  I’d like to know who you’d think would want to sign up on this craft that even the rats have deserted?”

“Never mind, Ira.  Don’t be downhearted,” Prudence said, now recovered from her excitement.  “Perhaps the Lord has something good in store for us.”

Cap’n Ira pursed his lips.

“I ain’t doubting the Lord’s stores is plentiful,” he returned rather irreverently.  “The trouble is for us poor mortals to get at ’em.  Well, Tunis, I certainly am obliged to you.”