“‘’Bout the napkin I sp’iled,’ I says.  ‘Mebbe not actially sp’iled,’ I says, ’but it’ll have to go into the wash ‘fore it c’n be used agin.’  She kind o’ smiled, an’ says, ’Really, Mr. Harum, I don’t know what you are talkin’ about.’

“‘Hain’t nobody told ye?’ I says.  ‘Well, if they hain’t they will, an’ I may ‘s well make a clean breast on’t.  I’m awful sorry,’ I says, ’but this mornin’ when I come to the egg I didn’t see no way to eat it ’cept to peel it, an’ fust I knew it kind of exploded and daubed ev’rythin’ all over creation.  Yes’m,’ I says, ’it went off, ’s ye might say, like old Elder Maybee’s powder,’ I guess,” said David, “that I must ‘a’ ben talkin’ ruther louder ‘n I thought, fer I looked up an’ noticed that putty much ev’ry one on ’em was lookin’ our way, an’ kind o’ laughin’, an’ Price in pertic’ler was grinnin’ straight at me.

“‘What’s that,’ he says, ‘about Elder Maybee’s powder?’

“‘Oh, nuthin’ much,’ I says, ’jest a little supprise party the elder had up to his house.’

“‘Tell us about it,’ says Price.  ‘Oh, yes, do tell us about it,’ says Mis’ Price.

“‘Wa’al,’ I says, ‘the’ ain’t much to it in the way of a story, but seein’ dinner must be most through,’ I says, ‘I’ll tell ye all the’ was of it.  The elder had a small farm ‘bout two miles out of the village,’ I says, ‘an’ he was great on raisin’ chickins an’ turkeys.  He was a slow, putterin’ kind of an ole foozle, but on the hull a putty decent citizen.  Wa’al,’ I says, ‘one year when the poultry was comin’ along, a family o’ skunks moved onto the premises an’ done so well that putty soon, as the elder said, it seemed to him that it was comin’ to be a ch’ice between the chickin bus’nis an’ the skunk bus’nis, an’ though he said he’d heard the’ was money in it, if it was done on a big enough scale, he hadn’t ben edicated to it, he said, and didn’t take to it any ways.  So,’ I says, ’he scratched ‘round an’ got a lot o’ traps an’ set ’em, an’ the very next mornin’ he went out an’ found he’d ketched an ole he-one—­president of the comp’ny.  So he went to git his gun to shoot the critter, an’ found he hadn’t got no powder.  The boys had used it all up on woodchucks, an’ the’ wa’n’t nothin’ fer it but to git some more down to the village, an’, as he had some more things to git, he hitched up ‘long in the forenoon an’ drove down.’  At this,” said David, “one of the ladies, wife to the judge, name o’ Pomfort, spoke up an’ says, ’Did he leave that poor creature to suffer all that time?  Couldn’t it have been put out of it’s misery some other way?’

“‘Wa’al marm,’ I says, ’I never happened to know but one feller that set out to kill one o’ them things with a club, an’ he put in most o’ his time fer a week or two up in the woods hatin’ himself,’ I says.  ‘He didn’t mingle in gen’ral soci’ty, an’ in fact,’ I says, ’he had the hull road to himself, as ye might say, fer a putty consid’able spell.’”