He said in the mornin’ that he held it in for that purpose.
He is a good-natured creeter, and a mourner, there hain’t no doubt on’t, and so I told Josiah.
And he snapped out enough to take my head off:
“He’d ought to mourn! I mourn,” sez he, “Heaven knows I do. But I shan’t mourn after the first ray of daylight, for I’ll take his trunks and throw ’em out-doors, and him on top of ’em. And I’ll cast out Melinda Ann like a viper,” sez he. “I’ll empty the house of the hull crew of fools and lunaticks! I’ll do it,” sez he, “if I have a breath left in my body.”
When he sez this I thought of Melinda Ann. Had she got a breath left? Wuz she alive? Or wuz she not?
I jest sprung over Josiah Allen, I trompled on him, I won’t deny it, in my haste to get up, and I left him groanin’ and a sayin’ in a low, mournful axent:
“That foot could never be stepped on agin by him.”
But I didn’t stop to comfort him; no, my mind wuz too much took up with the relation on my side.
I hastened upstairs, and there wuz my worst fears realized.