"Wal," said Hiel, "she's too good-lookin' to be let alone; she'll hev to hev somebody."
"Oh, there's enough after her," said Nabby. "There was that Virginny fellow in Judge Belcher's office, waitin' on her home from meetin' and wanting to be her beau; she wouldn't have nothin' to say to him. Then there was that academy teacher used to walk home with her, and carry her books and go with her to singin' school; but Dolly didn't want him. And there's Abner—he jest worships the ground she treads on; and she's jest good friends with him. She's good friends with 'em all round, but come to case in hand she don't want any on 'em."
"Wal, there ain't nothin' but the doctrine o' 'lection for such gals," said Hiel. "When the one they's decreed to marry comes along then their time comes, jest as yours and mine did, Nabby."
The conversation was here interrupted by the infant Zeph, who had improved the absorbed state of his parents' minds to carry out a plan he had been some time meditating, of upsetting the molasses pitcher. This was done with such celerity that before they could make a move both his fat hands were triumphantly spatted into the brown river, and he gave a crow of victory.
"There! clean table-cloth this very night! Did I ever see such a young un!" cried Nabby, as she caught him away from the table. "Father thinks he's perfection. I should like to have him have the care of him once," she added, bustling and brightening and laughing as she scolded; while Hiel, making perfectly sincere but ill-directed efforts to scrape up the molasses with a spoon, succeeded only in distributing it pretty equally over the table-cloth.
"Well, now, if there ain't a pair of you!" said Nabby, when she returned to the table. "If that ain't jest like a man!"
"Wal, what would ye hev me—like a girl, or a dog, or what?" asked Hiel, as he stood, with his hands in his pockets, surveying the scene. "I did my best; but I ain't used to managing molasses and babies together; that's a fact."
"It's lucky Mother went out to tea," said Nabby, as she whisked off the tablecloth, wiped the table, re-clothed it with a clean one, and laid the supper dishes back in a twinkling. "Now, Hiel, we'll try again; and be sure and put things where he can't get 'em; he does beat all for mischief!"
And the infant phenomenon, who had had his face washed and his apron changed in the interim, looked up confidingly in the face of each parent and crowed out a confident laugh.
"Don't let's tell Mother," said Nabby; "she's always sayin' we don't govern him; and I'm sure she spoils him more than we do; but if she'd been here she wouldn't get over it for a week."