Though I don't know's I ought to quote a hymn on such a matter; but then—I don' know's there's any partic'lar harm in't, neither.”
Eph sat down on a pile of shavings and chewed a sliver; and the old man kept on at his work.
“Hoop-poles goin' up and hoops goin' down,” he continued. “Cur'us, ain't it? But then, I don' know as 'tis; woods all bein' cut off—poles gittin' scurcer—hoops bein' shoved in from Down East. That don't seem just right, now, does it? But then, other folks must make a livin', too. Still, I should think they might take up suthin' else; and yet, they might say that about me. Understand, I don't mean to say that they actually do say so; I don't want to run down any man unless I know—”
“I can't stand this,” said Eph to himself; “I don't wonder that they always used to put Joshua off at the first port, when he tried to go coasting. They said he talked them crazy with nothing.
“I 'll go into the house and see Aunt Lyddy,” he said aloud. “I 'm loafing, this afternoon.”
“All right! all right!” said Joshua. “Lyddy 'll be glad to see you—that is, as glad as she would be to see anybody,” he added, reaching out for a pole. “Now, I don't s'pose that sounds very well; but still, you know how she is—she allers likes to hev folks to talk, and then she's allers sayin' talkin' wears on her; but I ought not to say that to you, because she allers likes to see you—that is, as much as she likes to see anybody. In fact, I think, on the whole—”
“Well, I'll take my chances,” said Eph, laughing; and he opened the gate and went in.
Joshua's wife, whom everybody called Aunt Lyddy, was rocking in a high-backed-chair in the kitchen, and knitting. It was currently reported that Joshua's habit of endlessly retracting and qualifying every idea and modification of an idea which he advanced, so as to commit himself to nothing, was the effect of Aunt Lyddy's careful revision.
“I s'pose she thought 't was fun to be talked deef when they was courtin',” Captain Seth had once sagely remarked. “Prob'ly it sounded then like a putty piece on a seraphine; but I allers cal'lated she 'd git her fill of it, sooner or later. You most gin'lly git your fill o' one tune.”