“(‘And consid’able close, too, though there was plenty o’ room!’)
“(‘And no one that I ever heard of so much as suspicioned that they had ever kept company!’)
“(‘And do you s’pose she knew Justin was expected back when she scrubbed his pew a-Friday?’)
“(‘And this explains the empty pulpit vases!’)
“(‘And I always said that Nancy would make a real handsome couple if she ever got anybody to couple with!’)”
The boastful old man, Turrible Wiley, in Rose o’ the River:
“‘I remember once I was smokin’ my pipe when a jam broke under me. ’Twas a small jam, or what we call a small jam on the Kennebec,—only about three hundred thousand pine logs. The first thing I knowed, I was shootin’ back an’ forth in the b’ilin’ foam, hangin’ on t’ the end of a log like a spider. My hands was clasped round the log, and I never lost control o’ my pipe. They said I smoked right along, jest as cool an’ placid as a pond-lily.’
“‘Why’d you quit drivin’?’ inquired Ivory.
“‘My strength wa’n’t ekal to it,’ Mr. Wiley responded sadly. ‘I was all skin, bones, an’ nerve....
“‘I’ve tried all kinds o’ labor. Some of ’em don’t suit my liver, some disagrees with my stomach, and the rest of ’em has vibrations.’”