“Kalub, don’t you want that I should show you one?”
“Where did you get it, Asenath?”
“Asahel made it for me. I told him how to make it, but when I came to explain to him what it was for his face fell, and he turned red and he said, ‘Hyppogriffo!’ I wonder where he got that word—‘hyppogriffo!’ It has a pagan sound; Asahel, he mistrusted.”
“Mistrusted what, Asenath?”
“Well, I haven’t told you quite all. When the head of a family knows that a certain young man is comin’ to visit him at a certain time and hangs up a courtin’ stick over the mantel-tree shelf, or the dresser, it is a sign to the visitor he is welcome.”
“But there is no need of a sign like that, Asenath.”
Asenath rose, went into the spare bed-room, a place of the mahogany bureau, the mourning piece, valences and esconces, and brought out a remarkable looking tube, which seemed to have leather ears at each end, and which was some dozen feet long.
“Moses!” said Caleb, “and all the patriarchs!” he added. “Let’s you and me try it. There, you put it up to your ear and let me speak. Is the result satisfyin’?”
Asenath assured him that the experiment was quite satisfactory.
“Well, well,” said Caleb. “Now I will go on shellin’ corn and think matters over; it may be all right if the elder says it is.”