"You've lost your guess this time," sez I, a trying to put on a stiff upper lip.
The old feller, he looked in my face, and then agin on the cuff of my coat—then he folded his arms and stepped back and eyed me all over, and sez he at last,
"Jonathan, one thing is sartin, either you've been a crying, or you've told a whopper to your old friend, or—"
"Or what?" sez I, wiping the cuff of my coat on my trousers' leg—"or what?"
"Or your deginerated—deginerated!" sez he, "deginerated from the Weathersfield stock!"
"Wal, I don't seem to understand how you'll make that out," sez I.
"Jonathan," sez he, as arnest as could be, "there was tears in your eyes jest as I come in, and you was ashamed on 'em. Now, sich tears as a smart, honest young man may feel in his eyes naturally, are nothing to be ashamed on; when he gets to thinking of hum or old friends, or perhaps them that are dead and gone,—the drops that come up unawares to moisten his eyes are wholesome to his natur. I've seen the time, Jonathan, when a minister's prayer didn't seem half so easing to the heart. An honest chap might as well feel streaked about saying the Lord's Prayer; for the tears that thinking of them that we love sets a going, have eenamost as much religion in 'em as singing and praying and going to meeting altogether. Prayer, Jonathan, prayer falls upon the natur like the warm sun on a patch of young onions—and tears, ginuine tears that come from tender thoughts, Jonathan, darn me if they ain't the rain that keeps the young shoots green. You wouldn't have been scared about my seeing sich tears, Jonathan, and I know you've got tu much grit for any other—you aint the chap to snuffle and cry because things go crooked with you—I'm sartin of that."
"I reckon you may be," sez I.
"Wal, Jonathan," says the captin, a folding his arms close up to the red shirt that kivered his bosom, "there aint but one way of accounting for it. I never would a believed it, but you've deginerated. These Yorkers have larned you to be ashamed of eating onions—it's jest arter dinner time—I see through it all—you've been a thinking of hum, and tried a raw onion for once—your eyes aint used to it now, and that's what makes 'em so red and misty. I have seen the time, Jonathan Slick, when you could cut up a hull peck without winking; I've seen you cronch one like a meller apple; and now, arter living in York, this is the eend on't."