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 neighbors. But if a hard life breeds hates, it breeds likin's too; an' it's because youall is folks that I'm praoud to call my friends, that I ast you to come here to-day. Friends, let's drink a toast to the health of our landlord an' neighbor, Uncle Ezry Pettit. This here is his treat."

A perceptible tremor went around the table. Everybody started slightly and looked half apprehensively at everybody else to see how they took it; then at the door as if Uncle Ezra might be expected to appear there at any moment and claim his property. Uncle Sam Whitmarsh chuckled into his tin mug. Uncle Amos Crupper held his cup poised half way between the table and his lips, deliberate, thoughtful, turning it over in his mind. Judith, glancing sidewise at Jerry, saw a look of shock pass across his face and felt a disturbing aura of disapproval suddenly surround him. But he went on eating.

"Haow did yuh come to git away with her, Jabez?"

It was her father asking the question. He tried to make his voice sound off-handed, but it had a strained, unnatural sound.

"Waal, Bill, it was this way. Friday evenin' on towards night I was a-comin' home raound by the back of Uncle Ezry's old terbaccer barn; an' there she stud caught in the wire fence. I was jes' fixin' to pull her aout, when it come over me all of a sudden haow good she'd eat. After that idear'd took a holt of me, I jes didn't hev the heart to turn her loose. I tuk a good look all raound, an' there wa'n't a soul to be seen on hill ner holler. It come into my mind haow Abraham when he wanted sumpin to offer up to the Lord fer a burnt offerin', faound a ram caught in the thicket. An' I ses to myse'f a wire fence was jes as good as a thicket any day fer ketchin' sech critters, an' mos' likely I needed the ewe more'n Abraham did the ram. So I jes hit her a whack atween the eyes with the hammer I was a-carryin'. She dropped like a sack o' meal, an' I drug her into the brush. Come dark night I went an' fetched her; an' here she is. She was a fat ewe."

"She was that," assented Uncle Sam Whitmarsh, wiping the grease from his mouth with his pocket handkerchief.

"Waal, I reckon Uncle Ezry won't die in the county house