"She said she thought the folks to the Basin was so full of yewmer and
pathers, 'don't yew?' says she.
"Wal, I told her I didn't know ars to that. 'Yewmer 's that 'ar'
'diction 't Job had, ain't it?' says I,' and pathers--thar' ye've kind
o' got me,' says I, ''less maybe it 's some fancy New York way o'
reelin' off pertaters,' says I.
"'Oh, dear!' says she, kind o' highsteriky ag'in, and Note driv off
with her, she a-wavin' her hand to me: but I set straight for'ards, not
lettin' on to take no notice of her. 'No, no, young woman,' thinks I
to myself, 'ye don't git in no kile on me!'"
The nervine lozenge which my friend had cautiously refrained from
giving Miss Langham he now bestowed upon me. I accepted it, for I was
in sore need of it.
I could not refrain from asking him, however, if he had offered Miss
Langham his deer-bone tooth-pick.
"No," said he, "she's lent neow, anyway. John Seabright 's got her
over to Herrinport. I don't say but what if that 'ar' Langham girl
sh'd have a r'al bad spall o' toothache come on, but what I'd let her
take her, but I'd jest as soon she didn't know nothin' 'beout it. I'd
ruther not make no openin' for a kile."
We sucked our nervine lozenges with mutual earnestness.
"You are getting on finely with the barn," I said, noticing several new
rows of shingles on the roof.
"Yes, I sh'd be afoul of her ag'in to-day, only 't Nason come over
yisterday and borrowed my lardder. I'm expectin' of him back with her
along in the shank o' the evenin'. Preachin' ain't so bad," continued
my friend, contemplatively, as the school-teacher passed by; "but I'd
ruther be put to bone labor 'n school teachin'. Ye've all'as got to be
thar', no marter heow many other 'ngagements----"
"Leezur!" called the soft voice of a Basin matron from the door.
"Leezur, have ye fished the bucket out o' the well?"
"Jest baitin' my hook, mother," said my friend, his face breaking into
the broadest human beam I ever saw.
He rose, and we walked toward the well. Now first I noticed his gait;
every step was a smiling protest against further advancement, which,
however, was made not unwillingly.
I observed, too, an illustration of this same smile in his rear, made
by an unconscious and loving wife, in a singular disposition of
patches: three on his blouse fortuitously representing eyes and nose,
and a long horizontal one, lower down, combining with these in an
undesigned but felicitous grin.
My friend disclosed this smiling posterior to full view, stretching
himself face downward on the earth, and burying his head, with the
grappling pole, in the well.
"This 'ere job," his voice came to me with resonant jubilance,
"requires a vary moderate dispersition: 'specially arfter the women
folks has been a-grapplin' for her, and rilin' the water, and jabbin'
of her furder in. But ef we considers ourselves to' be--as we
be--heirs of etarnity----
"Thought I'd got ye that time! But neow don't be too easy abeout
gittin' caught, down there! Priceless gems holds themselves skeerce,
ye know."
In which sarcastic but ever reasonable and moderate conversation with
that coy bucket I left my friend, and continued on my way with my
basket, under Miss Pray's commission to purchase "dangle-berries" at
the home of Dr. Spearmint.