And I sez, “I would hate to call such a good man as Paul the Jack.”
“Well,” sez he, “we could call the king Paul, and the queen Mary.”
But I talked him offen the idee, it didn’t seem right to me somehow. But he wuz honest and likely about it and didn’t mean no harm, and at the best it wuz only tryin’ to reconcile science and religion, or religion and fashion, as so many do, holdin’ the world in one hand and religion in the other, and tryin’ to carry ’em both stiddy. But Hamen and John laughed like two big gump heads about it, and the next evenin’ when they wuz playin’ they would call the two spot “Jacob” every time, and look at Jack and laugh till I felt that it wuz enough to make him swing right out and play cards Sunday, and not try to reconcile it with goodness and religion. But Tamer, when she found out about it, whipped him severe, she said it wuz irreverent and she wouldn’t have it. And that wuz jest the way it wuz the hull durin’ time.
Well, we didn’t stay but a day or two after the Boliver affair. Josiah felt that he must be to home, so we went, Tamer promisin’ Jack, who cried hard when we started, that he might come down and stay several days with us in a week or so, when she went to see Aunt Mary John she would leave him there and then stop and git him on her way home.
CHAPTER X
Little Delight burnt up the world a week ago last Wednesday, somewhere along about the middle of the forenoon.
She stayed here three days and four nights, while her Pa and Ma went to North Scriba to his folkses on a visit. Diphtheria wuz ragin’ there among the little children, and we none of us wuz willin’ to let Delight go. And they thought that they must go, for Barzilly Minkley, who hadn’t been in this part of the country for years and years, had come home to his folkses on a visit (Barzilly is Whitfield’s own cousin on his father’s side), and all the Minkleys wuz invited to the old Minkley homestead to visit with him.
Whitfield wanted to go, but didn’t want to unless Tirzah Ann went. I approved of their goin’, and told Tirzah Ann I would help her all I could. I helped her make a new cashmere dress and a blue wool travelin’ dress, and told her she could wear my new waterproof in welcome, hern wuz a old one. And I told her I would take care of little Delight and take it as a privelige. So they started early on a Tuesday mornin’, and we went after the child Monday night, so’s not to belate ’em on their journey. And it wuz on the Wednesday follerin’ about ten o’clock in the forenoon that she burnt up the world.