"Ah, Sim," said Arnold, "if only they were to ask thy advice, what advice thee would give them!"
"Now you're talking like a Quaker," Sim replied hotly. "Why do Quakers talk that way, I'd like to know. Thee-ing and thou-ing till it is enough to fuddle a sober man's wits. I declare they are almost as bad as people in foreign parts who, I've heard tell, have such a queer way of talking that an honest man can't at all understand what they're saying until he's got used to it."
"Such, indeed, is the way of the inconsiderate world, Sim," Arnold dryly replied.
Then the three of us put our shoulders to a hogshead, and in the mighty effort of lifting it to the bulkhead sill ceased to talk.
As we finally raised it and shoved it into the yard, Sim stepped farther out than Arnold and I, and looking toward the street, whispered, "He's going."
I sprang over beside him and saw that the visitor, having already unhitched his horse, was shaking hands with Uncle Seth. Stepping into the chaise, he then drove off.
For a space of time so long that the man must have come to the bend in the road, Uncle Seth and Cornelius Gleazen watched him as he went; then, to puzzle us still further, smiling broadly, they shook hands, and turning about, still entirely unaware that we were watching them, walked with oddly pleased expressions back into the store.
My uncle's face expressed such confidence and friendliness as even I had seldom seen on it.
"Now ain't that queer?" Sim began. "If Seth Upham was a little less set in his ways, I'd—"