“He did! He did!” Medora bitterly resented this fling at the remoteness of their poor home. “An' he said whilst hyar he'd level on everything in sight, ez he hoped never ter travel sech roads agin—everything in sight, even the baby an' the cat!”
“Shucks, Medory, ye know the dep'ty man war funnin' whenst he said that about the baby an' the cat! Ye know ez Clem admitted he hed Christmas in his bones!” the elder objected.
“Waal, war Clem Tweed funnin' whenst he done sech ez that, in levyin' an execution?” Bruce Gilhooley pointed with his ramrod at the wreck of the furniture.
The two women burst into lugubrious sobs and rocked themselves back and forth in unison. “'Twar Dad! ” Medora moaned, in smothered accents.
A pause of bewilderment ensued. Then the young man's face took on an expression of dismay so ominous that Medora's tears were checked in the ghastly fear of disasters yet to come to her father-in-law. Now and again she glanced anxiously over her shoulder at an oblong black aperture in the dusk which betokened the open door of the shed-room. Some one lurked there, evidently cherishing all aloof a grief, an anger, a despair too poignant to share.
“Dad warn't hyar whenst the dep'ty leveled,” she said. “An' mighty glad we war—kase somebody mought hev got hurt. But whenst Dad kem home an' larnt the news he jes'—he jes'—he jes' lept about like a painter.”
“He did! He did!” asseverated a voice from the veiled head, all muffled in the checked apron.
“Dad 'lowed,” continued Medora, “ez Peter Petrie hev persecuted and druv him ter the wall. Fust he tricked Dad out 'n some unoccupied lan' what Dad hed begun ter clear, an' Petrie got it entered fust an' tuk out a grant an' holds the title! An' whenst Dad lay claim ter it Peter Petrie declared ef enny Gilhooley dared ter cross Storm Mounting he'd break every bone in his body!”
“A true word—the insurance of the critter!” came from the blue-checked veil.
A stir in the shed-room—-a half-suppressed cough and a clearing of the throat. “An' then Dad fell on Pete Petrie at the Crossroads' store, whar the critter hed stopped with his mail-pouch, an' Dad trounced him well afore all the crowd o' loafers thar!”