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 telligence of a mule. He had a way of laying back his ears ever so slightly and looking at any one who approached him with a backward-sidewise glance of mingled playfulness and suspicion. It made Judith laugh to see him do this.

"Land, Elmer," she exclaimed, as they were putting up the horse and mule in the shed, "if that critter, Pete, hain't got the look of Uncle Sam Whitmarsh, I never seen two folks that looks alike. Uncle Sam has got jes that same way o' lookin' at you sharp an' sidewise an' yet smilin', as though he kinda suspicioned that you was a-tryin' to git the best of him, an' yet he wanted to be good friends an' have some fun with you too. An' if Uncle Sam could move his ears I'm sure he'd lay 'em back jes a little. They say animals can't smile. But if that mule hain't a-smilin' then what is he a-doin'?"

She patted his glossy neck admiringly. He flicked his ears and looked at her in his characteristic way, then poked his soft nose into her face.

"He's durn hard to ketch up in paster," grunted Elmer. "You come up alongside of him with the bridle, an' he gives you that 'ere look, an' fust thing you know he's a quarter of a mile off. My legs is run clean off since we got him."

After dinner the tobacco setting began. Elmer had the easy job. With a basket of plants on his arm he went along the rows that Jerry had laid off with the plow and dropped the plants at intervals of about eighteen inches, dropping two rows at a time. Jerry and Judith followed behind, each taking a row, and set the plants in the ground. They worked at first with their fingers, until the skin began to wear away. Then Jerry whittled two round, sharp-pointed sticks, and they used these instead of the fingers. With the sharp stick they made a hole in the wet earth, set the plant into it and pressed the earth down about the roots with their fingers.

At first they went along the rows gaily, rallying each other and trying to see which could work the fastest. Sometimes Jerry would get a little ahead and look back teasingly. Then Judith would make her fingers fly and outstrip him and laugh back at him from under her big blue sunbonnet. They soon