"I dunno where I heer'd it, but I know it's true. I expected it long ago. I told Jones it'd come out so."
"Why, Uncle Josh, you don't pretend to say that Miller's wife has run off with Bob Tape, Yardstick's clark, do you?"
"Yes, I do, too; hain't it been the talk of the neighborhood for a year past, that Miller's wife and that feller—Bob Tape, were a leetle too thick?"
"Well, Uncle Josh," says his neighbor Brown, "I don't recollect anybody saying anything about it, but you, and for my part, I don't believe a word of it."
"Why, hain't Miller's wife gone?" says Uncle Josh.
"I don't know—is she?" says Brown.
"Be sure she is; I went over to the store this morning, the fust thing, to see if Bob Tape was about—he wasn't there—they said he'd gone to Boston on business for old Yardstick. O, ho! says I, and then I started for Heeltap's shop; we had allers said how things would turn out. He was out, but seein' me go to his shop, he came a runnin', and says he:
"'Uncle Josh, theer gone, sure enough!—I've been over to old Mammy Gabbles, and she sent her Suke over to Miller's, on purtence of borrowin' some lard, but told Suke to look around and see ef Miller's wife wur about; by Nebbyknezer, Miller's wife wur gone! Marm Gabbles couldn't rest, so she sent back Suke, and told her to ax the children whare their marm wus; Miller hearing Suke, ordered her to scoot, so Suke left without hearing the facts in the case, as 'Squire Black says.'
"But Heeltap swears, and I know Miller's wife and Bob Tape have sloped, as they say in the papers."
"Well," says Brown, "I'm sorry if it's true—I don't believe a word of it tho', and as it's none of my business, I shall have nothing to say about it."