“I wasn’t crying,” she choked, drawing the corner of her handkerchief from her mouth. “It struck me so funny, Uncle Josiah!”
“Your notion of fun is the funniest I ever see,” he commented. “Mind telling me what it was that tickled you so?”
“You! Captain Josiah Pott! Threatening to disown the minister should he fail to toe your chalk-line! Where, may I ask, can one find a more high-handed tyranny of spurned authority than that? It’s too funny for words!”
“I cal’late you’d do some disowning, too, if he’d go traipsing round asking everybody’s pardon just because he steps on a few toes now and again.”
“I disown him?” she asked, not able to check the rush of color to her cheeks. “Pray tell! Why–––”
“Now, see here, Beth, there ain’t no use of your pretending to me.”––Page 146.
“Now, see here, Beth, there ain’t no use of your pretending to me. I’ve got a pair of eyes, and I make use of ’em. You wouldn’t want him a mite different, and if he was, you’d be as disapp’inted as me. I know what I’m talking about,” he declared, holding up his pipe with a convincing gesture. “All that he’s done is as religious to him as preaching a sermon, even that fight down to the Inn. It was a heap sight more religious than a lot of sermons I’ve listened to in my day.”