"I don't blame you, Gus," remarked Mr. Sanders, "you can git more straight p'ints from Albert Vardeman than you'll find in the books. He's been at Mrs. Claiborne's all day; I reckon she's gittin' him to ten' to some law business for her. They's some kinder kinnery betwixt 'em. His mammy's cat ketched a rat in her gran'mammy's smokehouse, I reckon. We've got more kinfolks in these diggin's, than they has been sence the first generation arter Adam."
At the mention of Mrs. Claiborne's name Silas Tomlin opened his eyes and uncrossed his legs. This movement caused him to lose his balance, and his chair fell from a leaning position with a sharp bang.
"What sort of a dream did you have, Silas?" Mr. Sanders inquired with affected solicitude. "You'd better watch out; Dock Dorrin'ton says that when a man gits bald-headed, it's a sign that his bones is as brittle as glass. He found that out on one of his furrin trips."
"Don't worry about me, Sanders," replied Silas. He tried to smile.
"Well, I don't reckon you could call it worry, Silas, bekaze when I ketch a case of the worries, it allers sends me to bed wi' the jimmyjon. I can be neighbourly wi'out worryin', I hope."
"For a woman with a grown daughter," remarked Mr. Tidwell, speaking his thoughts aloud, as was his habit, "Mrs. Claiborne is well preserved—very well preserved." Mr. Tidwell was a widower, of several years' standing.
"Why, she's not only preserved, she's the preserves an' the preserver," Mr. Sanders declared. "To look in her eye an' watch her thoughts sparklin' like fire, to watch her movements, an' hear her laugh, not only makes a feller young agin, but makes him glad he's a-livin'. An' that gal of her'n—well, she's a thoroughbred. Did you ever notice the way she holds her head? I never see her an' Nan Dorrington together but what I'm sorry I never got married. I'd put up wi' all the tribulation for to have a gal like arry one on 'em."
Mr. Sanders paused a moment, and then turned to Silas Tomlin. "Silas, I think Paul is fixin' for to do you proud. As I come along jest now, him an' Jinny Claiborne was walkin' mighty close together. They must 'a' been swappin' some mighty sweet secrets, bekaze they hardly spoke above a whisper. An' they didn't look like they was in much of a hurry."
While Mr. Sanders was describing the scene he had witnessed, exaggerating the facts to suit his whimsical humour, Silas Tomlin sat bold upright in his chair, his eyes half-shut, and his thin lips working nervously. "Paul knows which side his bread is buttered on," he snapped out.
"Bread!" exclaimed Mr. Sanders, pretending to become tremendously excited; "bread! shorely you must mean poun'-cake, Silas. And whoever heard of putting butter on poun'-cake?"