“Well, I don’t know,” rejoined that worthy dame. “Men jest has to do a sartin amount of fightin’ aryways, an’ now they kin git plenty. They’d orter. Davy was the head man of our fam’ly ontel he went away, an’ then Chan Bullock, he taken it on—an’ now not even Chan seems to hev ary bit of sand left. Ma’am, he’s been livin’ right along here, they tell me, sleepin’ right alongside of old Absalom Gannt, an’ he nuvver got him yit!
“I jest sort of wandered in town to-day to see what I could do my own self. An’ now what do I see? Why, old Absalom Gannt an’ David Joslin an’ Chan Bullock a-marchin’ down the street arm in arm, ye mought say, follerin’ the music! What kin I do? I say, the war it’s a massy—jest so old Absalom gits killed somewhar, I don’t keer how it happens!”
“They’re brave men,” said Marcia Haddon, her eyes suddenly kindling. “Why, look what he did—your grandson—down there at the Narrows.”
“Well, he anyways saved the corp,” assented Granny Joslin, nodding. “Like enough couldn’t no man of done much more’n that.”
“Davy’s a-goin ‘out, I reckon,” said Granny Williams now, reaching for a coal for her pipe, and offering it in turn to the other old dame, still held between the tips of her horny fingers.
“Of course he’ll go,” grumbled his granddam. “Joslins kain’t stay out’n ary war. I reckon that’ll put a stop to his colledge up on the hill, huh? We got to wait now till we lick them Dutch a-plenty—they tell me it’s the Dutch we’re a-goin’ to fight.”
“If thar ever was any talk that Davy was a-skeered,” commented Granny Williams presently, “I reckon it’ll be stopped now.”
“Nobody but a fool would ever say a Joslin was a-skeered of arything!” broke out the other old dame fiercely. “If he was a-skeered, would he of done called them people together down at the mill house a purpose to taken a shot at him if they wanted ter? If he was a-skeered, would he of went up to the door of the stillhouse, come two year back, an’ called old Absalom out? Only pity is he didn’t kill Absalom then—well, as I said, jest so Absalom gits killed some way, I hain’t no wise pertic’lar.”
“That’s right, Granny,” nodded Granny Williams with approval, shifting her cob pipe to her hand. “That’s the proper sperrit of a Christian. An’ I like to hear ye say it thataway.”
“Well,” she went on, sighing, “our own fam’ly hain’t got skercely a quarl left no more, sence my son Andy kilt the last Purrin over on Newfound a few year back. If I was sitiwated like ye air, Granny, I’d feel jest the same as ye do. I kin forgive all them Purrins now jest as easy as not—sence they’re all daid. Forgiveness is what they preach in the church house.