Ajax discreetly descanted upon the widow's fine complexion, but old man Kapus lent him but an indifferent ear.
"She's fat an' slick," he admitted, "but Johnnie's fat an' slick, too. An' who made him so? Why--his uncle Abram. D'ye think now that I've fed him up and got him into sech fine shape that he'll leave me? No, sir. You might act that-a-way, but not my Johnnie."
After dinner, we accompanied Uncle Abram as far as the creek which flows between the village and our domain. Here stand some fine cottonwood trees and half-a-dozen lordly white-oaks. The spot is famous as a picnicking ground, and in the heat of summer is as cool a place as may be found in the county. And here, paddling in the brook like an urchin, we found Bumblepuppy. His eyes sparkled as they fell upon the face of his uncle.
"Ye've got back, Johnnie," said the old man.
"Yas. 'Twas hotter'n a red-hot stove on the road."
"Ye druv in with the widder woman?"
"Yas. I druv in with her; but I walked back. Guess I run the most o' the way, too."
"An' Mis' Janssen--wheer is she?"
"I dunno', uncle Abram."
"Is she still a widder woman, Johnnie?"