“What did you have to do?” says I in pityin’ accents.
“Oh, I had to fix him off, brush his clothes and black his boots, and then I did up all my work, and then I had to go out and make six length of fence—the cattle broke into the corn yesterday, and he was busy writin’ his piece, and couldn’t fix it—and then I had to mend his coat,” glancin’ at a thick coat in the wagon. “He didn’t know but he should want it to wear home, he knew he was goin’ to make a great effort, and thought he should sweat some, he is dreadful easy to take cold,” says she with a worried look.
“Why didn’t he help you along with the children?” says I, in a indignant tone.
“Oh, he said he had to make a great exertion to-day, and he wanted to have his mind free and clear; he is one of the kind that can’t have their minds trammeled.”
“It would do him good to be trammeled—hard!” says I, lookin’ darkly on him.
“Don’t speak so of him,” says she beseechingly.
“Are you satisfied with his doin’s?” says I, lookin’ keenly at her.
“Oh yes,” says she in a trustin’ tone, liftin’ her care-worn, weary countenance to mine, “oh yes, you don’t know how beautiful he can talk.”
I said no more, for it is a invincible rule of my life, not to make no disturbances in families. But I give the yearlin’ pretty near a pound of candy on the spot, and the glances I cast on him and the pretty girl he was a flirtin’ with, was cold enough to freeze ’em both into a male and female glazier.
Lawyer Nugent now got up and said, “That whereas the speaking was foreclosed, or in other words finished, he motioned they should adjourn to the dinner table, as the fair committee had signified by a snowy signal that fluttered like a dove of promise above waves of emerald, or in plainer terms by a towel, that dinner was forthcoming; whereas he motioned that they should adjourn sine die to the aforesaid table.”