“Well,” sez I, “that don’t raise him in my estimation any. There is a man in Loontown that has had thirty-two children by his different wives, but he is a shiftless creeter, and so are most of his children.”
Sez she, “I don’t mean that; I mean an old family.”
“How old?” sez I calmly. And I went on, “There is a man in Spoon Settlement that has got a grandchild over seventy. And that you know, Tamer Ann, must make the old man pretty old, and, in fact, a pretty old family, for they are all livin’, father, son, and grandson. But, good land! nobody ever thought of lookin’ up to old Father Minkler, why, he is on the town, and has been on it for years, and they say now his son is on it and his grandson is jest thinkin’ of gittin’ on it. Good land! I should never think of lookin’ up to a family because they wuz old.”
“Well,” she sez, “they’ve descended from a long line of ancestors, they have great reason to be proud of it, there is where they have the advantage of us.”
“Oh, shaw!” sez I, “that is jest what we’ve all done, or it stands to reason that we shouldn’t be here. We have had to have ancestors, everybody has. I don’t see that he has any more than we have, so fur as that is concerned. I don’t spoze he has had more’n one father, or any of ’em have had more’n one father apiece, and that is jest what we’ve all had. If he had had several fathers and mothers it might be sunthin’ to boast over, and I don’t know as it would after all, for the text sez ‘every man stands and falls on himself,’ or words to that effect.”
And then Tamer Ann sez agin, real hautily, “He is from one of the old Dutch families it makes folks so proud to be descended from. He is a direct descendant of the Poltroons.”
“Well,” sez I calmly, “I shouldn’t wonder a mite if he wuz, but it don’t raise him up any in my estimation, and it wouldn’t if he had had Solomon and Moses for grandfathers. When I gather a white lily I pick it for its beauty and sweetness, and not for the soil it sprung from, good land! what do I care whether it grew on sandy sile or gravelly, or swampy, or anything? I prize it for its own beauty and sweetness that it has drawn by its own life out of the earth. Good land! I should jest as soon take up a handful of this sile and treasure it up and try to see how it come to nourish so sweet a life as I would to grope back amongst the dust of them old Poltroons. Though to be sure it is nateral that a posy should strike some clingin’ roots down into the sile it grew on, it is nater and can’t be helped. You take any posey that is healthy and vigorous, and take any tree or bush whatsumever, and when you pull it out of its home it takes a wrench, a hard wrench to start it, the tendrils strike so deep. God made posies and hearts kinder clingin’ in their nater and they hang onto their old homes. It is nateral for folks to look back with pride upon the noble doin’s of their forefathers if they’ve done ’em, but to boast over a Poltroon jest from the fact of his bein’ a Poltroon—I should never boast over it, never.”
“Patroon,” sez Tamer hautily, “I have corrected you before in this.”
“Well,” sez I mildly, “they sound considerable alike, and when there are so many big words that mean about the same thing it is nateral that folks should sometimes git ’em kinder mixed.”
“They wuz high families,” sez Tamer, “they descended from the Dutch settlers on Manhattan Island, that the grandest families of to-day claim with pride as being their ancestors.”