Old Deacon Joshua Marlowe and his wife were seated in the dingy kitchen of the old farmhouse, and it was plainly to be seen that they were both worried and angry.
The farmer’s elbows were on his knees and his head between his hands, and as he sat in silent meditation he spitefully chewed a long wisp of straw.
Martha Marlowe dried her eyes with her apron now and then, and finally a decided sniff evinced to her husband that she was crying.
Instead of becoming more calm at this sign of his wife’s grief, Deacon Marlowe raised his head and scowled at her angrily.
“’Tain’t no use tew snivel about it, Marthy,” he said, snappishly. “It’s got tew be did, an’ thet’s all thar is about it! Sile’s got the mor’gage on the farm, an’ he’s a-goin’ tew foreclose, an’ all the cryin’ yew kin dew won’t help matters any.”
“But where be we a-goin’?” asked his wife, desperately. “I’ve asked Samanthy tew take us, an’ she ’lows Tom won’t have us!”
“Tom’s a doggoned jackass!” was the farmer’s answer. “Ef I’d a-knowed how tarnal stingy he wuz, I’d never hev let Samanthy marry him!”
“Waal, you wuz pretty sot on the matter, Joshuy!” snapped his wife, with some spirit. “The Lord knows, Samanthy didn’t want tew marry him!”
There was no answer to this, so Mrs. Marlowe grew bolder.
“Marion told yew how it would turn out when yew done it, Joshuy, an’, in spite of that, yew done yewr best tew make Dollie marry Sile Johnson! Not but that yew meant well by the gal,” she added, a little more humbly, “but it shows on the face of it that it ain’t right fer a father tew interfere in sech matters. Ef our children hadn’t been driv so by their father, they might a-been here tew comfort us this minute!”