was the Sheriff; do come in.  Poor thing, she looked half starved and half savage, hunger and temper had made proper strong lines in her face, like water furrows in a ploughed field; she looked bony and thin, like a horse, that has had more work than oats, and had a wicked expression, as though it warnt over safe to come too near her heels—­an everlastin kicker.  You may come out, John, said she to her husband, its only Mr. Slick; and out came John from under the bed backwards, on all fours, like an ox out of the shoein frame, or a lobster skullin wrong eend foremost—­he looked as wild as a hawk.  Well, I swan I thought I should have split, I could hardly keep from bustin right out with larfter—­he was all covered with feathers, lint and dust, the savins of all the sweepins since the house was built, shoved under there for tidiness.  He actilly sneezed for the matter of ten minutes—­he seemed half choked with the flaff and stuff, that came out with him like a cloud.  Lord, he looked like a goose half picked, as if all the quills were gone, but the pen feathers and down were left, jist ready for singin and stuffin.  He put me in mind of a sick Adjutant, a great tall hulkin bird, that comes from the East Indgies, a most as high as a man, and most as knowin as a Blue Nose.  I’d a ginn a hundred dollars to have had that chap as a show at a fair—­tar and feathers war’nt half as nateral.  You’ve seen a gall both larf and cry at the same time, hante you? well, I hope I may be shot if I could’nt have done the same.  To see that critter come like a turkey out of a bag at Christmas, to be fired at for ten cents a shot, was as good as a play; but to look round and see the poverty —­the half naked children—­the old pine stumps for chairs—­a small bin of poor watery yaller potatoes in the corner—­day light through the sides and roof of the house, lookin like the tarred seams of a ship, all black where the smoak got out—­no utensils for cookin or eatin—­and starvation wrote as plain as a handbill on their holler cheeks, skinney fingers, and sunk eyes, went right straight to the heart.  I do declare I believe I should have cried, only they did’nt seem to mind it themselves.  They had been used to it, like a man that’s married to a thunderin ugly wife, he gets so accustomed to the look of her everlastin dismal mug, that he don’t think her ugly at all.  Well, there was another chap a settin by the fire, and he did look as if he saw it and felt it too, he did’nt seem over half pleased, you may depend.  He was the District Schoolmaster, and he told me he was takin a spell at boardin there, for it was their turn to keep him.  Thinks I to myself poor devil, you’ve brought your pigs to a pretty market, that’s a fact.  I see how it is, the Blue Noses can’t “cypher.”  The cat’s out of the bag now—­its no wonder they don’t go ahead, for they don’t know nothin—­the “Schoolmaster is abroad,” with the devil to it, for he has no home at all.  Why, Squire, you might jist as well expect a horse