He made a stride towards the door, with the look of a man quite ready to extinguish the claims of half a dozen rivals; but the farmer caught his arm.
“Jest set down and mind your business—I’ll have no muss about my house—set down, I say.”
“Wal,” muttered Sim, sinking slowly into his chair again, and ejecting his tobacco with great violence among the blazing pine knots, “only wait till I meet him with that new Sunday coat of his on—ef I don’t embroider it off for him in fine style, I miss my calculation—that’s all I’ve got to say.”
“Don’t be a fool,” expostulated Shoemaker; “never quarrel about a gal—you don’t know where you’ll find yourself. I wish you’d go down to the tavern for me, and ask Jacob Harney to come up here to-morrow; if he wants that grey mare of mine, he’s got to take her now.”
“It’s getting late,” suggested Sim.
“You can stay all night, and come back in the morning. Consarn me, if I don’t believe the fellow’s afeard of meeting Jim Davis.”
Sim disdained to reply either to this taunt or the housewife’s laughter; but, planting his old straw hat firmly on his head, was going out of the back door.
“That’s a new fit of yourn,” called out the farmer; “don’t you know that t’other door leads to the road, you blockhead you!”
Sim turned back without a word, and passed out of the door Shoemaker had named; but once in the road he stopped and looked back at the house.
“There’s something wrong,” he muttered. “Old Ike Shoemaker, you ain’t cute enough yet for this chap, by a long shot. I’m bound to see what’s going on here; that wan’t Jim Davis, no how; the darned old Tory has got some mischief afloat, and I’m a-goin’ to find it out.”