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 her that I was on about the family receipt, and couldn’t be side-corralled off of the subject. ‘Come, now, Miss Willella,’ I says; ‘let’s hear how you make’em. Pancakes is just whirling in my head like wagon wheels. Start her off, now—pound of flour, eight dozen eggs, and so on. How does the catalogue of constituents run?’

“‘Excuse me for a moment, please,’ says Miss Willella, and she gives me a quick kind of sideways look, and slides off the stool. She ambled out into the other room, and directly Uncle Emsley comes in in his shirt sleeves, with a pitcher of water. He turns around to get a glass on the table, and I see a forty-five in his hip pocket. ‘Great post-holes!’ thinks I, ‘but here’s a family thinks a heap of cooking receipts, protecting it with firearms. I’ve known outfits that wouldn’t do that much by a family feud.’

“‘Drink this here down,’ says Uncle Emsley, handing me the glass of water. ‘You’ve rid too far to-day, Jud, and got yourself over-excited. Try to think about something else now.’

“‘Do you know how to make them pancakes, Uncle Emsley?’ I asked.

“‘Well, I’m not as apprised in the anatomy of them as some,’ says Uncle Emsley, ‘but I reckon you take a sifter of plaster of paris and a little dough and saleratus and corn meal, and mix ’em with eggs and buttermilk as usual. Is old Bill going to ship beeves to Kansas City again this spring, Jud?’