savvey anything about it.  ’Now, explain to me,’ says I to him.  ’You say you have so many shares of them stock,’ waving my hand to a bunch of critters in the distance.  ’What part do you take?  I mean, what’s your share of each animal, and does the last man get the hoofs and the tail?’ ’Oh! you don’t understand,’ says he.  ‘I’ll explain it to you.’  So he starts in to tell me that ‘stock didn’t necessarily mean beef critters,’ and a lot more things, whilst old man Ferguson, who was putting the deal through, stood listening and chewing his teeth, thinking I was going to give our friend the frolicsome hee-hee at the wind-up.  But I stood solemn, and never even drew a smile, for fear of queering Ferguson.  Well.  That’s the proper way to start a company; make it as dreary and long-winded as possible.  We ain’t done that, and perhaps we’ll go broke for breaking the rules, and then your stock won’t be worth a cuss; so don’t you get excited about it.  I wanted the Saunders family to be represented.  Pretty soon the old lad with the nose will be around, and you’ll have a chance to read about the ‘parties of the first part,’ and ’second parts of the party’ and ‘aforesaids’ and ‘behindsaids’ and the rest of the yappi them lawyers swing so that honest men won’t know what the devil they’re up to.”

“Oh, Will!  How can I ever thank you!” cried Miss Mattie, her eyes filling.  It seemed a great and responsible position to the gentle lady to be a stockholder in the corporation.  It wasn’t the monetary value of the thing; it was the pride of place.

“If you don’t know how, don’t try,” returned Red.  “You give the other three stockholders a good feed to-morrow and the thanks will be up to you.  Hello!  There’s the old lad now!” as a trumpet blast rang out from the front porch.  “It must take some practise to blow your nose like that.  I’ve heard Jackasses that could not bray in the same class with that little old gent—­come in.  Come in!  You needn’t sound the rally again.”

Thus adjured the lawyer made his entrance, and Miss Mattie became in due and involved course of law a stockholder in the Fairfield Strawboard Mfg.  Co.

Fairfield rose to activity like a very small giant refreshed.  Teams and their heavy loads kept the respectable dust in constant commotion.  A grist mill was added to the intended plant, thus offering an inducement to the farmer to raise grain, and incidentally straw, “So we can ketch ’em on both ends, too,” as Red put it.

The time seemed like enchantment to Miss Mattie.  As a bringer of the tidings, and a stockholder in the company, she had risen to be a person of importance, with the result that she was even more modestly shy than before, although in her heart she liked it; but more delightful yet was the spirit of holiday activity which inspired and pervaded the place.