“Then you can wake me up, dear heart,” he said, “bein’ as you’re sure to be up.”
She shook her head. “You were always up first, sweetheart, but that day you’ll sleep on and I’ll have no power to rouse you—unless, says Isaiah, you ‘look unto me and be saved.’ ‘Dust to dust’—that shows we’re not immortal by nature.”
“But ef it’s comin’ so soon, Oi shan’t be in my grave at all,” he urged anxiously, “and Oi can push into the Tabernacle.”
“No more easy than for wasps to push into the hive. You’ve seen the bees push ’em back.”
“But one or two does get in and Oi reckon Oi’ll take hold o’ your skirt, same as you been readin’ me.”
“I read you there’ll be ten men to take hold of it,” she said.
“Nine other men!” he cried angrily. “But they won’t have no right to take hold o’ my wife’s skirt.”
“That’s what Zechariah says—‘ten men of all languages.’ ”
Caleb’s gloom relaxed. “He was thinkin’ o’ Che’msford and sech-like great places full o’ furriners,” he said decisively. “Here there’s onny Master Peartree, and the shepherd ain’t a Goloiath. Oi’ll soon get riddy o’ him, happen he don’t hook hisself to you with his crook.”
“But I’ll pull in Will too,” said Martha.