“Gosh all fish-hooks!” he exclaimed, coming into the sitting-room at last. “This is the wust storm we’ve had since seventy-two, Jason. ’Member that?”
“Sure, the time Job Eldridge got snowed-up in a bear’s den,” declared Uncle Jason quickly.
“Jest the same—jest the same,” said Walky, his eyes sparkling as he rubbed his great, red hands in the heat of the glowing stove.
“In a bear’s den!” ejaculated Marty. “Was the bear at home?”
Walky was chuckling hugely. “You’d oughter as’t Job,” he said. “He had a-plenty to say about it arterward. Ain’t that so, Jason? He talked voluminous on that subject for the rest of his endurin’ life!”
“Tell us about it, do, Walky,” urged Janice, taking up the last piece of fancy-work she expected to finish before Christmas.
Aunt ’Mira came in, too, and sat down under the lamp. Walky Dexter began slowly to expand; he dearly loved the sound of his own voice, as Janice had frequently told him.
“Wal,” began Walky, “Job was the laziest man that ever drew on a pair of boots! He worked for ’Linus Webster one winter, up on the back of this very mountain, gettin’ out timbers for this very Constance Colfax that frets the waters of this very lake. You kin see the boat is some aged, and that we need a new one, railroad competition, or no railroad competition, eh, Jason?”
“Quite right, Walky,” agreed Uncle Jason, “greasing the wheels” of Walky’s speech.
“We was all comin’ home nights from the wood-lot, ’cause ’twas easier than buildin’ a camp and hirin’ a cook, and all. Besides, we misjedged ’Linus’ supplies. Time before he’d hired a gang to go lumberin’ he’d supplied weevilly flour and wormy pork,” explained the story-teller.