"She's always so full of her prejudisms," he said, pointing toward the kitchen door with his thumb. "Now 'f she'd go 'long o' me up to the spring and see what a tremenjus flow o' water there is, she'd be pleased as Punch. Now wouldn't she?"
Lysander brought his chair to the floor with a bang that made the loose boards of the porch rattle.
"Come 'round the house, pap," he said anxiously.
The hounds followed, dejected, but hopeful, as became believers in special providence.
When the two men were out of hearing of the kitchen, Lysander took his father-in-law by the shoulders and shook him, as if by shaking down the loose contents of his brain he might make room for an idea.
"You want to shut up about the spring. It's give out,—dried up. The blastin' and diggin' in the cañon done it, I s'pose, an' Poindexter—that's the engineer—thinks Forrester'll make it all right; but you don't want to be coaxin' the old woman up there, not if the court knows herself, and you want to keep your mouth purty ginerally shut. D' y' understand?"
The old man's face worked in a feeble effort at comprehension.
"Give out,—dried up? Oh, come now, Lysander," he faltered.
"Yes, dried up, and you want to do the same. Don't you think this 'ud be a purty good time fer you to take a trip off somer's fer your health, pap?"
The old man stood a moment wrestling with the hopelessness of the situation. Besotted as he was, he could still realize the calamity that had overtaken them: could realize it without the slightest ability to suggest a remedy. As the direfulness of it all crept over him, something very like anger gleamed through the blear of his faded eyes.