"Mr. Van de Lear, there are some cares so natural that they are almost consolation. Under the pressure of them we draw nearer to happiness. What merry words should be said to those who were bred under this roof in such misfortunes as I have now—as the absent have?"
Podge saw Agnes put her handkerchief to her face, and her neck shake a minute convulsively. Duff Salter here sneezed loudly: "Jericho! Jerichew! Je-ry-cho-o!" He produced a tortoise-shell snuff-box, and Podge took a pinch, for fun, and sneezed until the tears came to her eyes and her hair was shaken down. She wrote on the tablets,
"Men could eat dirt and enjoy it."
He replied, "At last dirt eats all the men."
"It's to get rid of them!" wrote Podge. "My boys at school are dirty by inclination. They will chew anything from a piece of India rubber shoe to slippery elm and liquorice root. One piece of liquorice will demoralize a whole class. They pass it around."
Duff Salter replied, "The boys must have something in their mouths; the girls in their heads!"
"But not liquorice root," added Podge.
"No; they put the boys in their heads!"
"Pshaw!" wrote Podge, "girls don't like boys. They like nice old men who will pet them."
Here Podge ran out of the room and the conversation in the front parlor was renewed. The voice of Calvin Van de Lear said: