I yelled and told Pop. He come over, still waving his hat in front of his face. Sig Freed had run under the house and was whimpering.

Pop took a look when I fished one up again, and nodded his head. “Just tanning some cowhides,” he says, like he wasn’t too surprised.

“Is Uncle Sagamore in the tannery business?” I asked.

Pop looked like he was thinking about something. “What’s that? Oh. Not that I ever heard of. Maybe it’s sort of a sideline.”

“But what’s he got ‘em up against the house for? I’d think he’d put ‘em about two miles away.”

“Well, I don’t know,” Pop says. “Maybe he’s just trying to aggravate Bessie, or something. Anyway, I wouldn’t ask him about it, if I was you. Sagamore’s sort of peculiar about people asking questions. So when we find him, just kind of ignore the whole thing.”

I started to ask him how you was going to ignore anything as powerful as them tubs, but then I didn’t. When it comes to answering a lot of questions, Pop never figures to be laying up close to the pace hisself. Maybe it runs in the family.

I went on around the house, looking for Uncle Sagamore. The sun was straight overhead now, and it was hot. I could hear some kind of bug yakking it up in the trees. I was walking along the bare ground at the back of the house when I thought I heard somebody moving inside. I stopped and listened, but didn’t hear it any more, only that bug buzzing away down the hill.

The kitchen door was open. I walked up on the step, which was a block cut out of a big log, and looked inside. I didn’t see anybody, so I went on in. Sig Freed jumped up on the block and come in after me. There was a cook-stove in one corner, and a table with oilcloth on it, and some chairs.

I noticed a pot sitting on the stove, and went over and lifted the lid, thinking there might be something to eat in it. There was. They was white, and looked like boiled potatoes. I got a spoon off the table and dug a piece out of one. It wasn’t a potato, though. It tasted more like a rutabaga. And it was stone cold. It wasn’t very good.

There was a door on the left side of the kitchen, and one straight ahead, going into the front. I looked in the room on the left. There was a bed in it, but it was kind of a storeroom.

Some sacks of sugar was sitting on the floor, and there was a lot of old harness and clothes hanging along the walls.