Perspiration oozed from the modest Jim afresh.

"I never eat breakfast in the presence of ladies," said he.

"Well, you needn't mind me. I'm jest a plain, sensible woman," replied
Miss Dennihan. "I don't want to see no feller-critter starve."

Jim writhed in the blankets. "I didn't s'pose you could stay all day,"
he ventured.

"I kin stay till I mend all your garmints and tidy up this here cabin,"
she announced, calmly. "So let your mind rest easy." She meant to see
that child if it took till evening to do so.

"Maybe I can go to sleep again and dream I'm dead," said Jim, in
growing despair.

"If you kin, and me around, you can beat brother John all to cream,"
she responded, smoothing out the mended overalls and laying them down
on a stool. "Now you kin give me your shirt."

Jim galvanically gathered the blankets in a tightened noose about his
neck.

"Hold on!" he said. "Hold on! This shirt is a bran'-new article, and
you'd spoil it if you come within twenty-five yards of it with a
needle."

"Where's your old one?" she demanded, atilt for something more to