“Did she pay cash?” demanded Captain Shadrach sharply.

“No; she said charge ’em up, so I done it.  Say, ain’t you comin’ in pretty soon?  It’s ’most my supper time.”

Zoeth opened his mouth to answer, but the Captain got ahead of him.

“It’s our supper time, too,” he said, crisply.  “When we’ve had it you can have yours.  Get dap, January.”

The horse, whose name was Major but who was accustomed to being addressed by almost any name, jogged on.  Mr. Hamilton sighed once more.

“I’m ’fraid one of us had ought to stayed in the store, Shadrach,” he said.  “Annabel means well, she’s real obligin’; but she ain’t a good hand at business.”

Shadrach snorted.  “Obligin’ nothin’!” he retorted.  “We’re the ones that was obligin’ when we agreed to pay her seventy-five cents for settin’ astern of the counter and readin’ the Advocate.  I told you when you hired her that she wasn’t good for nothin’ but ballast.”

“I know, Shadrach.  I’d ought to have stayed to home and kept store myself.  But I did feel as if I must go to Marcellus’s funeral.”

“Sellin’ them Youngs a whole passel of stuff and lettin’ ’em charge it up!” went on Shadrach.  “They owe us enough now to keep a decent family all winter.  Reg’lar town dead-beats, that’s what they are.  You couldn’t get a cent out of Rastus Young if you were to run a dredge through him.”

Mr. Hamilton groaned remorsefully.  “If I’d only stayed at home!” he said.

“If you’d stayed to home you’d have charged up the stuff just the same as she did.  You’re the softest thing, outside of a sponge, in this town.  Anybody can impose on you, and you know it, Zoeth.”

Zoeth’s habitual mildness gave way to resentment, mild resentment.

“Why, Shadrach,” he retorted, “how you talk!  You was the one that charged up the last things Rastus’s folks bought.  You know you was.”

The Captain looked as if he had been caught napping.

“Well, what’s that got to do with it?” he sputtered. “‘Twasn’t nothin’ but some corn meal and a few yards of calico.  How could I help chargin’ it up, with that woman cryin’ and goin’ on about their havin’ nothin’ to eat nor wear in the house?  I couldn’t let ’em starve, could I?  Nor freeze neither?”

“’Twas only last week she did it,” protested his partner.  “Folks don’t freeze in April, seems to me.”

“Aw, be still!  Don’t talk no more about it.  By fire!” with a sudden change of subject and a burst of enthusiasm, “look at that horse, will you!  Turned right in at the gate without my pullin’ the helm once or sayin’ a word—­knows as much as a Christian, that horse does.”