Here his father interrupted him with, “Shucks, Lammy Lane, ain’t you got better sense than to throw away dollars?” but his mother gave Joshua a look, and said: “Don’t you shet him off the track until he’s through. I knew he wasn’t working in his mind like he’s done lately for nothing.”
When he told of chopping up the tea-pot, his father chuckled, but his mother shivered and broke in with, “How could you ever set an axe in it? It seems to me ’bout as bad as cuttin’ up poor Aunt Jimmy for sausages!”
When he came to the end, and pulling out his handkerchief, spread the contents before his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Lane stood grasping the table edge and staring white and wide eyed, until Joshua broke the silence with “Jehosophat! Nancy Hanks! but I’m kneesprung dumbfounded!”
“And you’d better be!” snapped Lauretta Ann, as nearly as she could snap at her husband; “after all you’ve said against the memory of sainted Aunt Jimmy, and sneered and snipped at her will and meanings! Don’t you see now how she fixed things so’s I’d get the farm by biddin’ it in fair without bein’ hashed over in public for gettin’ more’n my equal share? She trusted me to fetch that pot home and, by usin’ it daily, find it wouldn’t pour out, as I would have did and diskiver the money. Oh, Joshua, Joshua, let this be a lesson to you an’ all husbands not to browbeat their trustin’ wives, as women’s allers the furthest seein’ sect.”
“Fur seein’, shucks!” snorted Joshua, who had enjoyed his recent authority too well to part with it; “between you and Aunt Jimmy yer’d made a fine mess o’ it, and it took a male, though not a full-grown one, to pull yer out of it, for yer allowed yer’d only stick up the pot for a moniment an’ not use it on account o’ its taste tainting the tea. It sartinly took us men folks to dig yer out o’ it; didn’t it, Lammy?
“Now as we know Aunt Jimmy’s intentions was that this be kept close, close it’ll be kept, and we’d better pack up them bills until we can bank ’em Monday, in case Mis’is Slocum should be drawd to look in the winder to see if we are havin’ a hot or cold supper, and real or crust coffee.”
“But mother,” said Lammy, as soon as he could be heard, “when shall we get Bird back? Need we wait until the auction?”
“Sakes alive, child, I’ll write as soon as I get my head, but there’s two letters unanswered now, and I’m afeared they’ve moved again. Somehow, with all we’ve got to face just now, I think ’twould be better waitin’ until everything’s settled up certain and we’ve got the place safe and sound. Then pa and me and you could kind er celebrate, and take a trip to N’York and get her. I ain’t never been there but onct in my life, an’ that was to a funeral when it wasn’t seemin’ fer me to look about to see things, and it rained and I spoiled my best bunnit. I reckon, now we can afford it, ’twould set us all up to go on a good lively errand o’ mercy, and maybe see a circus too if there’s any there, and eat a dinner bought ready made. Seems to me I should relish some vittles I hadn’t cooked, and to step off without washing the dishes.”