“Ach, Amos, you’re soured,” said Millie.
“No, not me,” he declared. “I know there’s still a few good women in the world. Ach, yea,” he sighed deeply and looked the incarnation of misery, “soon I’ll have three to boss me, with Amanda here growin’ like a weed!”
“Don’t you know,” Mrs. Reist reminded him, “how Granny used to say that one good boss is better than six poor workers? You don’t appreciate us, Amos.”
“I give up.” Uncle Amos spread his hands in surrender. “I give up. When women start arguin’ where’s a man comin’ in at?”
“I wouldn’t give up,” spoke out Lyman. “A man ought to have the last word every time.”
“Ach, you don’t know women,” said Uncle Amos, chuckling.
“A man was made to be master,” the youth went on, evidently quoting some recent reading. “Woman is the weaker vessel.”
“Wait till you try to break one,” came Uncle Amos’s wise comment.
“I,” said Lyman proudly, “I could be master of any woman I marry! And I bet, I dare to bet my pop’s farm, that any girl I set out to get I can get, too. I’d just carry her off or something. ’All’s fair in love and war.’”
“Them two’s the same thing, sonny, but you don’t know it yet,” laughed Uncle Amos. “It sounds mighty strong and brave to talk like you were a giant or king, or something, and I only hope I’m livin’ and here in Crow Hill so I can see how you work that game of carryin’ off the girl you like. I’d like to see it, I’d sure like to see it!”