As she stood there she noticed, also, that the slant sunbeams were heating Sandy’s head to what she judged to be an unhealthy temperature, and that his hat was lying uselessly at his side.  To pick it up and to place it over his face was a work requiring some courage, particularly as his eyes were open.  Yet she did it, and made good her retreat.  But she was somewhat concerned, on looking back, to see that the hat was removed, and that Sandy was sitting up and saying something.

The truth was, that in the calm depths of Sandy’s mind he was satisfied that the rays of the sun were beneficial and healthful; that from childhood he had objected to lying down in a hat; that no people but condemned fools, past redemption, ever wore hats; and that his right to dispense with them when he pleased was inalienable.  This was the statement of his inner consciousness.  Unfortunately, its outward expression was vague, being limited to a repetition of the following formula—­“Su’shine all ri’!  Wasser maar, eh?  Wass up, su’shine?”

Miss Mary stopped, and, taking fresh courage from her vantage of distance, asked him if there was anything that he wanted.

“Wass up?  Wasser maar?” continued Sandy, in a very high key.

“Get up, you horrid man!” said Miss Mary, now thoroughly incensed; “get up, and go home.”

Sandy staggered to his feet.  He was six feet high, and Miss Mary trembled.  He started forward a few paces and then stopped.

“Wass I go home for?” he suddenly asked, with great gravity.

“Go and take a bath,” replied Miss Mary, eying his grimy person with great disfavor.

To her infinite dismay, Sandy suddenly pulled off his coat and vest, threw them on the ground, kicked off his boots, and, plunging wildly forward, darted headlong over the hill, in the direction of the river.

“Goodness heavens!—­the man will be drowned!” said Miss Mary; and then, with feminine inconsistency, she ran back to the schoolhouse and locked herself in.

That night, while seated at supper with her hostess, the blacksmith’s wife, it came to Miss Mary to ask, demurely, if her husband ever got drunk.  “Abner,” responded Mrs. Stidger, reflectively, “let’s see:  Abner hasn’t been tight since last ’lection.”  Miss Mary would have liked to ask if he preferred lying in the sun on these occasions, and if a cold bath would have hurt him; but this would have involved an explanation, which she did not then care to give.  So she contented herself with opening her gray eyes widely at the red-cheeked Mrs. Stidger—­a fine specimen of Southwestern efflorescence—­and then dismissed the subject altogether.  The next day she wrote to her dearest friend, in Boston:  “I think I find the intoxicated portion of this community the least objectionable.  I refer, my dear, to the men, of course.  I do not know anything that could make the women tolerable.”