“I wouldn’t look so pop-eyed fur nuthin’,” remarked the pullet, in callow pertness; she might not have been suspected of laying so much stress on appearances.
“I’m tryin’ ter think,” said Alethea, dazed, “ef that war afore Tad war drownded or arterward.”
Marvin turned, and leered significantly at his family.
“Mus’ hev been afore he war drownded, I reckon,” he said satirically.
“Lethe Sayles,” observed Serena reprehensively, “ye air teched in the head.”
She tossed her own head with a conviction that, if not strictly ornamental, it was level. Then, like the sane fowl that she was, she went stepping about on her long, yellow feet with a demure, grown-up air.
“Oh,” said Alethea, fixing the dates in her mind, “it mus’ hev been arterwards”—
“Likely,” interrupted Sam Marvin.
—“’kase that very evenin’ arter I seen ye at the cow-pen Elviry Crosby kem an’ tole ez how Reuben Lorey hed bust down old man Griff’s mill, an’ his nevy Tad war in it, an’ war drownded in the ruver.”