"Sh'd say th' would," said pa, stopping short in a long story about Ed. "Seems if we couldn't keep anything in this house sep'rit from the rest. Ed he uses my curry-comb—"
He launched out a long list of grievances, to which Will shut his ears as completely as possible, and was thinking how to stop him, when there came a sudden crash. Agnes had dropped a plate.
"Good land o' Goshen!" screamed Granny. "If you ain't the worst I ever see. I'll bet that's my grapevine plate. If it is—Well, of all the mercies, it ain't! But it might 'a' ben. I never see your beat—never! That's the third plate since I came to live here."
"Oh, look-a-here, Granny," said Will, desperately, "don't make so much fuss about the plate. What's it worth, anyway? Here's a dollar."
Agnes cried quickly:
"Oh, don't do that, Will! It ain't her plate. It's my plate, and I can break every plate in the house if I want to," she cried defiantly.
"'Course you can," Will agreed.
"Wal, she can't! Not while I'm around," put in Daddy. "I've helped to pay f'r them plates, if she does call 'em her'n—"
"What the devul is all this row about? Agg, can't you get along without stirring up the old folks every time I'm out o' the house?"
The speaker was Ed, now a tall and slouchily dressed man of thirty-two or three; his face still handsome in a certain dark, cleanly-cut style, but he wore a surly look as he lounged in with insolent swagger, clothed in greasy overalls and a hickory shirt.