“The plague must be stamped out, Abe.”
“Oh, yes! I yeard that story before! It’s a good way to save a crittur’s life by shooting him! What beats me is why you don’t up and shoot all children sick with tyfust and grown people ailing with influenza! My gum! I’m ashamed of you!”
“Well, so long!”
“You ain’t goin’?”
“I think so; the work of shooting cattle is not pleasant, but it is less pleasant to be reminded of it.”
“Oh, go along! Put your horse in the shed and come right in. The place ain’t been the same since you’ve been away, sonny; ’sides, there’s been no one along for weeks, and I’m jes’ bu’sting with talk. You wouldn’t like to see old Abe die of untold yarns.”
So I off-saddled and knee-haltered the horse, for there was no oat-hay in the shed for him, and he had to get what picking he could from the old lands, yellow with charlock.
Abe made up the fire, and put on the kettle to boil, while from the larder he produced a slab of pork and a half-loaf—very black on the outside and very soft within.
“The last batch of baking,” he said, “was not up to the mark. The yeast gave out, and I were obliged to get a rise out of a handful of rub-rub berries. As for the pork, that came from a pig that was catched.”
“What sort of pig?”