"That ain't the point. I'm ashamed of that table. W'en I was young no one ever had to speak to me about things once, before I knew. Once I left drips round the end of my table, and me mother come along and 'Martha,' says she—"
"It's a wonder the wonderful Jim Clay didn't say it," muttered the irreverent representative of the degenerate rising generation sotto voce.
"'If that's the way you wash a table,' says she, 'no blind man would choose you for his wife,' for that was the way they told if their sweetheart was a good housekeeper, by feelin' along the table w'en they was done washin' up."
"An' what did you say?" interestedly inquired Andrew.
"I didn't say nothink. In them days young people didn't be gabbing back to their elders w'en they was spoke to, but held their mag an' done their work proper," she crushingly replied.
"But I was thinkin'," said Andrew quite unabashed, "that you was a terrible fool to be took in with that yarn. For who'd want to be married by a blind man, an' I reckon that blind men oughtn't be let to marry at all, and I think anyhow he ought to have been glad to get any woman, without sneakin' around an' putting on airs about being particular," he earnestly contended.
"But that ain't the point, anyhow," said she.
"Well, what did you tell it to me for, grandma?"
"Hold your tongue," said the old lady irately; "sometimes you might argue with me, but there's reason in everythink, an' if you don't have that table scrubbed and cleaned proper by the next time I come round you'll hear about it."
With this she walked farther on towards the pig-sty and cow-bails, and considering this a good opportunity for private conversation I went with her, remarking in a casual manner—