"This," said Mr. Yancy, "are Scratch Hill, sonny. Why Scratch
Hill? Some say it's the fleas; others agin hold it's the eternal
bother of making a living here, but whether fleas or living you
scratch fo' both."




CHAPTER II

YANCY TELLS A MORAL TALE


In the deep peace that rested like a benediction on the pine-clad
slopes of Scratch Hill the boy Hannibal followed at Yancy's heels
as that gentleman pursued the not arduous rounds of temperate
industry which made up his daily life, for if Yancy were not
completely idle he was responsible for a counterfeit presentment
of idleness having most of the merits of the real article. He
toiled casually in a small cornfield and a yet smaller truck
patch, but his work always began late, when it began at all, and
he was easily dissuaded from continuing it; indeed, his attitude
toward it seemed to challenge interference.

In the winter, when the weather conditions were perfectly
adjusted to meet certain occult exactions he had come to require,
Yancy could be induced to go into the woods and there labor with
his ax. But as he pointed out to Hannibal, a poor man's capital
was his health, and he being a poor man it behooved him to have a