“Well, they talk about the same of you,” Ni proceeded with an air of impartial candor. “But all that don’t do you no good, an’ don’t do Jeff no good!”
“He made his own bed, and he must lay on it,” said the farmer, with dogged firmness.
“I ain’t sayin’ he mustn’t,” remonstrated the other. “What I’m gittin’ at is that you’d feel easier in your mind if you knew where that bed was—an’ so’d M’rye!”
Abner lifted his head. “His mother feels jest as I do,” he said. “He sneaked off behind our backs to jine Lincoln’s nigger-worshippers, an’ levy war on fellow-countrymen o’ his’n who’d done him no harm, an’ whatever happens to him it serves him right. I ain’t much of a hand to lug in Scripter to back up my argyments—like some folks you know of—but my feelin’ is: ‘Whoso taketh up the sword shall perish by the sword!’ An’ so says his mother too!”
“Hm-m!” grunted Ni, with ostentatious incredulity. He bit into his apple, and there ensued a momentary silence. Then, as soon as he was able to speak, this astonishing boy said: “Guess I’ll have a talk with M’rye about that herself.”
The farmer’s patience was running emptings.
“No!” he said, severely, “I forbid ye! Don’t ye dare say a word to her about it. She don’t want to listen to ye—an’ I don’t know what’s possessed me to stand round an’ gab about my private affairs with you like this, either. I don’t bear ye no ill-will. If fathers can’t help the kind o’ sons they \ bring up, why, still less can ye blame sons on account o’ their fathers. But it ain’t a thing I want to talk about any more, either now or any other time. That’s all.”
Abner put the fork over his shoulder, as a sign that he was going, and that the interview was at an end. But the persistent Ni had a last word to offer—and he left his barrel and walked over to the farmer.
“See here,” he said, in more urgent tones than he had used before, “I’m goin’ South, an’ I’m goin’ to find Jeff if it takes a leg! I don’t know how much it’ll cost—I’ve got a little of my own saved up—an’ I thought—p’r’aps—p’r’aps you’d like to—”
After a moment’s thought the farmer shook his head. “No,” he said, gravely, almost reluctantly. “It’s agin my principles. You know me—Ni—you know I’ve never b’en a near man, let alone a mean man. An’ ye know, too, that if Je—if that boy had behaved half-way decent, there ain’t anything under the sun I wouldn’t’a’ done for him. But this thing—I’m obleeged to ye for offrin’—but—No! it’s agin my principles. Still, I’m obleeged to ye. Fill your pockets with them spitzenbergs, if they taste good to ye.”