Part 21 (1/2)

Canned milk, canned beef, canned beans, canned sal; bottled fruits, bottled pickles, bottled jas of sugar, flour, alore, axes, haes, peevies, cant hoops, picks, shovels, nails, paints, brooms, brushes and a thousand other commodities and contrivances the like of which I never saw before and hope never to see again

Never, in all my humble existence, did I feel so clerky as I did then

I checked the beastly stuff off as well as I could, taking the Vancouver wholesalers' word for the nas, for I was quite sure they knew better than I did about them

With the assistance of Jake, as ”hander-up,” I set the goods in a semblance of order on the shelves and about the store

We worked and slaved as if it were the last day and our eternal happiness depended on our finishi+ng the job before the last trump sounded its blast of dissolution

By the last stroke of twelve, ht, we had the front veranda swept clean of straw, paper and excelsior, and all empty boxes cleared away; just in time to welcome the advent of hout our arduous afternoon and evening, what a surprise old Jake was to h fro with the northern elee and with his record for hard drinking, should be able to keep up the sustained effort against a young man in his prime and that he should do so cheerfully and without a word of corunt when the steel bands around some of the boxes proved recalcitrant, and an explosive, picturesque oath when the end of a large case dropped over on his toes,--was, toto think that Mr K B Horsfal had erred in regard to his old

If any man ever did deserve two breakfast cups bri in, it was old, walrus-h Jake, in the s

I slept that night like a dead thing, and the sun was high in the heavens before I opened s

I looked over at the clock Fifteen s over the side of the bed, ashaardliness

Then I relorious re to do but attend to s back into the bed in order to start the day correctly

I lay and stretchedthat it was the Sabbath,--I put one foot out and then the other, until, at last, I stood on the floor, really and truly up and awake

Jake had been around I could see traces of hih he was nowhere visible in the flesh

After I had breakfasted and made my bed (I know little Maisie Brant, who used to make my bed away back over in the old home--little Maisie who had wept at ain, had she seen hten out my sheets and sh and--I was quite satisfied with my handiwork and satisfied that I would be able to sleep soundly in the bed when the night should coain)--I hunted the shelves for a book

Stevenson, Poe, Scott, Hugo, Wells, Barrie, Dufellow, Burns,--which should it be?

Back along the line I went, and chose--oh, well!--an old favourite I had readit comfortably from the posts on the front veranda, where I could lie and smoke and read; also where I could look away across the Bay and rest roeary

Late in the afternoon, when I was beginning to grow tired of asoline launch as it came up the Bay It passed between Rita's Isle and the wharf, and held on, turning in to Jake Meaghan's cove

I wondered who the visitor could be, then I went back toafter, a shadow fell across my book and I jumped up

”Pray, don't let me disturb you, my son,” said a soft, well-modulated, masculine voice ”Stay where you are Enjoy your well-earned rest”

A little, frail-looking, pale-faced, elderly gentleman was at el, and my heart went out to hied him in my arms