JIM HOCKSON’S REVENGE.
I.
“YE don’t say?”
“I do though.”
“Wa’al, I never.”
“Nuther did I—adzackly.”
“Don’t be provokin’, Ephr’m—what makes you talk in that dou’fle way?”
“Wa’al, ma, the world hain’t all squeezed into this yere little town of Crankett. I’ve been elsewheres, some, an’ I’ve seed some funny things, and likewise some that wuzn’t so funny ez they might be.”
“P’r’aps ye hev, but ye needn’t allus be a-settin’ other folks down. Mebbe Crankett ain’t the whole world, but it’s seed that awful case of Molly Capins, and the shipwreck of thirty-four, when the awful nor’easter wuz, an’——”
“Wa’al, wa’al, ma—don’t let’s fight ’bout it,” said Ephr’m, with a sigh, as he tenderly scraped down a new ax-helve with a piece of glass, while his wife made the churn-dasher hurry up and down as if the innocent cream was Ephr’m’s back, and she was avenging thereon Ephr’m’s insults to Crankett and its people.