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120 out on top of his head. Dad jumped a log and tried to unbuckle his strap and reach for Joe at the same time, but Joe fled.

That threw a painful pall over everything. Dad declared he was sick and tired of the whole thing, and would n't do another hand's-turn. Dave meditated and walked along the fence, plucking off scraps of skin and hair that here and there clung to the bent and battered wire.

We had just finished supper when old Bob Wren, a bachelor who farmed about two miles from us, arrived. He used to come over every mail-night and bring his newspaper with him. Bob could n't read a word, so he always got Dad to spell over the paper to him. We did n't take a newspaper.

Bob said there were clouds gathering behind Flat Top when he came in, and Dad went out and looked, and for the fiftieth time that day prayed in his own way for rain. Then he took the paper, and we gathered at the table to listen. "Hello," he commenced, "this is M'Doolan's paper you've got, Bob."

Bob rather thought it was n't.

"Yes, yes, man, it is," Dad put in; "see, it's addressed to him."

Bob leaned over and looked at the address, and said: "No, no, that's mine; it always comes like that." Dad laughed. We all laughed. He opened it, anyway. He