Captain Obed interrupted.  “Hello!  Hello!” he exclaimed.  “What’s this?  Has Caleb Hammond offered to go gallivantin’ off to the Ostable Cattle Show along with you, Hannah?  Well, well!  Wonders’ll never cease.  Caleb’s gettin’ gay in his old age, ain’t he?  Humph! there’ll be somethin’ else for the postoffice gang to talk about, first thing you know.  Hannah, I’m surprised!”

Miss Parker colored and seemed embarrassed.  Her brother, however, voiced his disgust.

“Surprised!” he repeated.  “Huh!  That’s nuthin’ to what I am.  I’m more’n surprised—­I’m paralyzed.  To think of that tightfisted old fool lettin’ go of money enough to hire a horse and team and—­”

“Kenelm!” Hannah’s voice quivered with indignation.  “Kenelm Parker!  The idea!”

“Yes, that’s what I say, the idea!  Here’s an old critter—­yes, he is old, too.  He’s so nigh seventy he don’t dast look at the almanac for fear he’ll find it’s past his birthday.  And he’s always been so tight with money that he’d buy second-hand postage stamps if the Gov’ment wouldn’t catch him.  And his wife’s been dead a couple of hundred year, more or less, and yet, by thunder-mighty, all to once he starts in—­”

“Kenelm Parker, you stop this minute!  I’m ashamed of you.  Mr. Hammond’s a real, nice, respectable man.  As to his money—­well, that’s his business anyhow, and, besides, he ain’t hirin’ the horse and buggy; he’s goin’ to borrow it off his nephew over to the Centre.  His askin’ me to go is a real neighborly act.”

“Huh!  If he’s so plaguy neighborly why don’t he ask me to go, too?  I’m as nigh a neighbor as you be, ain’t I?”

“He don’t ask you because the buggy won’t hold but two, and you know it.  I should think you’d be glad to have me save the expense of my fare.  Winnie S. would charge me fifty cents to take me to the depot, and the fare on the excursion train is—­”

“Now what kind of talk’s that!  I ain’t complainin’ ’cause you save the expense.  And I don’t care if you go along with all the old men from here to Joppa.  What I’m sayin’ is that I’m goin’ to that Fair tomorrow.  I can go alone in the cars, I guess.  There won’t nobody kidnap me, as I know of.”

“But, Kenelm, I don’t like to have you over there all by yourself.  It’ll be so lonesome for you.  If you’ll only wait maybe I’ll go again, myself.  Maybe we could both go together on Saturday.”

“I don’t want to go Saturday; I want to go tomorrow.  Tomorrow’s the big day, when they have the best horse-racin’.  Why, Darius Holt is cal’latin’ to make money tomorrow.  He’s got ten dollars bet on Exie B. in the second race and—­”

“Kenelm Parker!  Is that what you want to go to that Cattle Show for?  To bet on horse trots!  To gamble!”

“Aw, dry up.  How’d I gamble?  You don’t let me have money enough to put in the collection box Sundays, let alone gamblin’.  I have to shove my fist clear way down to the bottom of the plate whenever they pass it for fear Heman Daniels’ll see that I’m only lettin’ go of a nickel.  Aw, Hannah, have some sense, won’t you!  I’d just as soon go to that Fair alone as not.  I won’t be lonesome.  Lots of folks I know are goin’; men and women, too.”