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Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Additional Transcriber’s Notes are at the end.
_Set up and printed by the Vail-Ballou Co., Binghamton, N. Y. Paper furnished by W. F. Etherington & Co., New York, N. Y. Bound by the H. Wolff Estate, New York, N. Y._
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
I record my acknowledgements to the Editors of the following journals in which a few of these tales first appeared: _Westminster Gazette_, _Pearson’s Magazine_, _Voices_, _English Review_. A. E. C.
In the great days that are gone I was walking the Journey upon its easy smiling roads and came one morning of windy spring to the side of a wood. I had but just rested to eat my crusts and suck a drink from the pool when a fat woman appeared and sat down before me. I gave her the grace of the morning.
“And how many miles is it now?” I asked of her.
“What!” said she, “you’re not going the journey?”
“Sure, ma’am,” said I, “I’m going, and you’re going, and we’re all going ... aren’t we?”
“Not,” said she, looking at me very archly, “not while there are well-looking young fellers sitting in the woods.”
“Well, deliver me!” said I, “d’ye take me for the Angel Gabriel or the duke of the world!”
“It’s not anything I’m taking you to be, young man ... give me a chew of that bread.”
She came and sat beside me and took it from my hands.
“Little woman ...” I began it to her; but at that she flung the crust back in my face, laughing and choking and screaming.
“Fat, woman!” says I, “you’re no fat at all.”
But, I declare it, she’d a bosom like a bolster. I lay on my back beside her. She was a rag of a woman. I looked up through the tree branches at the end of the shaw; they were bare, spring was late that year. The sky was that blue ... there wasn’t a cloud within a million miles ... but up through the boughs it looked hard and steely like a storm sky. I took my hat from her, for she had put it on her own head, and I stood on my feet.
“Fat, ma’am!” says I ... and she looked up at me, grinning like a stuffed fox.... “Oh no, ma’am, you’re slim as the queen of Egypt!”