"Yes, pra'ps it was and pra'ps it wasn't," one would say as he thought of little "Half-a-pint," now a noisy little tom-boy filling the fir woods with laughter, "but then her having that 'ere poet about her all the time, that's what sticks in my crop."
"That's what sticks in my crop," echoes his fellow, as he pushes the bushy beard from his mouth and lifts his gourd of wine.
"The reputation of this ere camp," says another, as he sets down his empty gourd and lays his fore-finger in his palm, and settles his head wisely to one side, "the reputation of this ere camp depends on a havin' of this ere thing cleared up about the Widder."
"It looks pesky black," put in the other garrulous old woman in duck breeches, "'Cause why? she still sees him."
"And Sandy?"
Three old heads, helpless, good-natured old women, who had spent their manhood and their strength long before their grape-vines were growing on the hill-side, huddled close together in half maudlin conversation.
"Sandy!"
"He's a chuckle-headed old idiart."
"He's a gitten old and he can't help hisself."
"He's a gitten old."