“Ye ’pear sorter peaked,” she remarked, prosaically, “an’ ye walk toler’ble cripple.”
“Yes,” observed Mink, with his wonted manner, “it ’peared ter me a toler’ble good joke ter jump off the middle o’ the bredge inter the Tennessee Ruver. But it turned out same ez mos’ o’ my jokes,—makes me laugh on the wrong side o’ my mouth.”
Mrs. Purvine began to understand. Her lower jaw dropped. “Whar hev ye hed ennything ter eat?” she demanded, with bated breath.
“Waal,” said Mink, argumentatively, “eatin’ ’s a powerful expensive business; we-uns would all save a heap ef we’d quit eatin’.”
Mrs. Purvine received this in pondering silence. Then she broke forth suddenly:—
“Ye air a outdacious, sassy, scandalous mink, an’ I hev ’lowed ez much fur many a year, but I never looked ter see the time when ye’d kem an’ prop yerse’f up in my gyarden-spot, an’ look me in the eye, an’ call me stingy. How war I ter know ye warn’t ez full ez a tick, ye impident half-liver? I kin see ez ye ain’t fat in no-wise, but how kin I tell by the creases in a man’s face what he hed fur dinner?”
“Laws-a-massy, Mis’ Purvine!” exclaimed Mink, truly contrite for the untoward interpretation which his words seemed to bear. “I never meant sech ez that. Ef it hed been enny ways nigh cookin’ time, I’d hev kem right in,—ef I hedn’t been afraid ye’d tell on me,—an’ axed ye fur a snack. Ain’t I eat hyar time an’ agin along o’ Jerry Price? I hev hed a heap o’ meals from you-uns,—more ’n ye know ’bout, fur I hev treated yer water-million patch ez ef it hed been my own.”
If Mrs. Purvine was placated, she did not at once manifest the fact. “What d’ye know ’bout cookin’ time, or cookin’, ye slack-twisted, lazy, senseless critter? Jes’ kerry yer bones right inter that thar door, fur eat ye hev got ter. In Moses’s name!” she ejaculated piteously, “the boy kin sca’cely walk.”
But Mink hesitated. “I don’t wanter see Jerry,” he said. “I dunno what Jerry mought think ’bout’n it all.”
“Jerry’s dead asleep, an’ so air all the boys,” declared the industrious Mrs. Purvine. “Ye reckon ye air goin’ ter find ennybody up this time o’ night ’ceptin’ a hard-workin’ old woman like me? I can’t be no surer o’ ye ’n I be a’ready. Go ’long in, ’fore I set Bose on ye.”