“Well,” said Uncle Silas, faintly smiling, “'t is no use rubbin' the fur the wrong way; stroke the world from head to tail is my rule.”
“Speaking of folks being easy,” said Captain Bennett, “it seems there 's quite a little story about David Prince's voyage on the 'Viola.'” “I thought he went off whaling rather in a hurry,” said Captain Philo, “and if it had been 'most anybody else, I should have thought there was something up.”
“It seems,” said Captain Bennett, “it was like this: You know, Delia was n't much over ten years old when her mother died, along a piece after her father, and she come to live with us. And you know how she was almost like one of the family. Well, about eight years ago, when she 'd got to be towards nineteen, it was then that David first set out to shine up to her; and when he begun to come home from singing-school with her that winter, and got to coming to the house quite often the next spring along, I begun to feel a little shaky. Finally, one Sunday afternoon I was sitting out on the porch and she was singing hymns inside,—you know she was always singing,—and I called to her to quit and come out, and sit down alongside of me, and says I,—“'Delia, it can't be you 're thinking of taking up with David Prince?'
“Well, she flared a little, but finally says she:
“'Why should n't I, or anybody that has the chance, take David Prince?'
“'Well,' says I, 'I don't think you need to ask why; I should say that a smart girl wouldn't want more than to travel once along the Lower Road and see those two run-down houses,—one deserted, and the other, handy by, about as bad,—and the barn across the road, that was raised and boarded in over forty years ago, and never shingled, and stood so till it's all rotted and sunk in.'
“'What's that got to do with David?' says she.
“'It's got this to do with David,' says I, 'that his father and his Uncle Ezekiel and their father before 'em—good, kindly men—all seemed to settle, settle, somehow; and it was all to-morrow, and to-morrow, with 'em; 'and then I told Delia how they sold off their wood and then their land, piecemeal, all but the spot where the old buildings stand,—and that's worth nothing.
“'And that's the way,' says I, 'it 'll be with David when he gets over being a boy and settles down; it's in the blood; and I don't want to see you, Delia, keel-hauled there—'”
“Like David's mother,—Prudence Frost, that was,” said Uncle Silas; “originally she was a good, smart girl, and full of jingle; but finally she give up and come to it,—lef sweepin'-day out o' the almanic, washed dishes in cold water, and made up beds at bedtime; and when she ironed a shirt, jes' 's like's not she 'd iron a hoss-fly right into the bosom.”