John Jay watched him with a grin on his face.
Presently Mammy, turning to season the stew, saw the black face pressed close against the window-pane.

With a startled shriek she gave the pepper-pot such a shake that the lid flew off, and nearly all of the pepper went into the stew.
"Jus' see what you done!" she scolded, as John Jay walked into the house an instant later.

"Next time you come gawkin' in the window at me in the dark, I'll peppah _you_ 'stid o' the rabbit!" John Jay hastened to change the subject.

"I sole a bushel of hickory nuts to Mistah Bemis jus' now," he stammered, "an' he's goin' to take some mo' next week.

I'm savin' up to get you all somethin' mighty nice for Chrismus." He jingled his pockets suggestively; but Mammy was too busy skimming the pepper out of the stew to make any reply.
* * * * * One warm, mellow afternoon when the golden-rod was at its sunniest, and the iron-weed flaunted its royal purple across the fields in the trail of the Indian summer, John Jay went down to the toll-gate cottage.