And that bleak afternoon, while the winds raged and the rain descended, the old woman was rating her partner:
“See how cold it’s getting, Sam Brown, and not a dozen sticks in the woodpile to keep us from freezing till morning. Say no more about it, but hitch up the wagon and go to the woods for a load of wood, you shif’less mortial!”
Lazy Sam having ignored this daily rating till they had come to almost the last stick in the woodpile, knew that even the rain would not save him now, but rather add to the fury of his spouse’s wrath.
So he sighed and drew on his “slicker,” as he called his old rubber overcoat, and went out to the stable to help the chore boy hitch up the horses to the old wagon.
And presently they drove toward the wood, the old man shouting back to his wife in the kitchen door:
“If I catch my death o’ cold, it’ll be your fault, Goody!”
“My back is broad enough to bear the blame!” she retorted nonchalantly, adding to herself:
“He knows he’s as tough as a pine knot!”
Sam Brown drove on into the wood, and by and by he pricked up his ears at a strange sound.
“Lord a-massy, Jinkins, who can thet be singing like a loonytic yonder ’neath the trees?” he exclaimed.