CHAPTER IX
THE EXODUS
"Well, it just amounts to the whole of Sweetbriar a-rising up and declaring of a war on Gid Newsome, and I for one want to march in the front ranks and tote a blunderbuss what I couldn't hit nothing smaller than a barn door with if I waster try," exclaimed Mrs. Rucker as she waited at the store for a package Mr. Crabtree was wrapping for her.
"I reckon when the Senator hits Sweetbriar again he'll think he's stepped into a nest of yellar jackets and it'll be a case of run or swell up and bust," answered Mr. Crabtree as he put up the two boxes of baking-powder for the spouse of the poet, who stood beside his wife in the door of the store.
"
Well," said Mr. Rucker in his long drawl as he dropped himself over the corner of the counter, "looks like the Honorable Gid kinder fooled along and let Cupid shed a feather on him and then along come somebody trying to pick his posey for him and in course it het him up. You all 'pear to forget that old saying that it's all's a fair fight in love and war."
"Yes, fight; that's the word! Take off his coat, strap his galluses tight, spit on his hands and fight for his girl, not trade for her like hogs," was the bomb of sentiment that young Bob exploded, much to the amazement of the gathering of the Sweetbriar clan in the store. Young Bob's devotion to Rose Mary, admiration for Everett and own tender state of heart had made him become articulate with a vengeance for this once and he spat his words out with a vehemence that made a decided impression on his audience.
"That are the right way to talk, Bob Nick
ols," said Mrs. Rucker, bestowing a glance of approval upon the fierce young Corydon, followed by one of scorn cast in the direction of the extenuating-circumstances pleading Mr. Rucker. "A man's heart ain't much use to a woman if the muscles of his arms git string-halt when he oughter fight for her. Come a dispute the man that knocks down would keep me, not the buyer," and this time the glance was delivered with a still greater accent.
"Shoo, honey, you'd settle any ruckus about you 'fore it got going by a kinder cold-word dash and pass-along," answered the poet propitiatingly and admiringly. "But I was jest a-wondering why Mr. Alloway and Miss Rose Mary was so—"