She had only known him for about twenty days--"The man who mends the boats"-- but she had fallen into the way of referring all interesting questions to him.

That was perhaps the more remarkable as her eyes had never rested upon him.
One morning Worth had looked up from some comparative measurements of the tails of Pourquoi and N'est-ce-pas to demand: "Why, Aunt Kate, what do you think ?" "There are times," replied Aunt Kate, looking over at the girl swaying in the hammock, humming gently to herself, "when I don't know just what to think." "Well sir, what do you think?
The man that mends the boats knows more 'an Watts!" "Worthie," she admonished, "it's bad business for an army man to turn traitor." "But yes, he does.

'Cause I asked Watts why Pourquoi had more yellow than white, and why N'est-ce-pas was more white 'an yellow, and he said I sure had him there.

He'd be blowed if he knew, and he guessed nobody did, 'less maybe the Almighty had some ideas about it; but yesterday I asked the man that mends the boats, and he explained it--oh a whole lot of long words, Aunt Kate.

More long words 'an I ever heard before." "And the explanation?
I trust it was satisfactory ?" "I guess it was," replied Worth uncertainly.