"I won't have it. You hain't a-goin' to stop and visit with that man."
I faced him with dignity and with some madness in my liniment, and sez I, "Why?"
Sez he, "Do you ask why?"
"Yes," sez I, with that same noble, riz-up look on my eyebrow—"why?"
"Wall," sez he, a-lookin' kinder meachin', "I want sunthin' to eat, and you'd probable talk a hour with him by the way you've praised up his doin's here."
By this time General Davis wuz fur away.
And I sithed, when I thought on't, what he'd lost by not receivin' my eloquent and heartfelt thanks, and what I'd lost in not givin' 'em.
I d'no as Josiah was jealous—mebby he wuzn't. But General Davis is considerable handsome, and Josiah can't bear to have me praise up any man, livin' or dead. Sometimes I have almost mistrusted that he didn't like to have me praise up St. Paul too much, or David, or Job—or he don't seem to care so much about Job. But, as I say, mebby it wuzn't jealousy—his appetite is good; mebby it was hunger.