“She was quiet a piece, for she seen I was in a wery sewere turn o’ mind. I didn’t pay no more attention tell I was jest about gittin’ up from the table ’hen she spoke up agin.
“‘Uncle,’ she sais, ‘I hope you won’t mind, but that’s what we Piscopaleens calls preachers—rectors. Mr. Dawson is a rector.’
“Well, sirs, I was so took back, I jest set down an’ gasped. I thot I was goin’ to hev a stroke. Here was one o’ my blood, my own brother’s dotter, raised on the milk o’ Presbyter’anism, fergittin’ the precepts o’ her youth, strayin’ out o’ the straight an’ narrow way an’ takin’ up with the new-fandangled idees o’ the Piscopaleens. An’ why? Because she liked the singin’! ’Hen I heard that I rose in my wrath an’ started down here to cool off. On reachin’ the apple tree be the bend in the road, I set down on the grassy bank to rest a leetle an’ look ’round. Pretty soon I see a man comin’ over the medder, an’ ez he got close I knowd be the cut o’ his coat an’ the flatness o’ his black slouch that it was the preacher hisself. ’Hen he reached the creek he give a run an’ jump an’ went flyin’ over it in the most ondignifiedest way I ever seen. ‘It seems like he thinks he’s an angel a’ready an’ is spreadin’ his wings,’ I sais to meself. Then he puts both hands on the top o’ the six-rail fence an’ waults over it like a circus performer, landin’ almost at me feet.
“‘Hello,’ he sais.
“‘Hello,’ sais I, never liftin’ me eyes offen the wheat field acrosst the road.
“‘Fine day,’ sais he.
“‘I was jest tryin’ to make up me mind whether it was or not,’ sais I.
“I thot that ’ud settle him, but I mistook me man. He were the thickest headedest, forwardest felly I ever laid eyes on. He jest laughed. Now I admits that ’hen he laughed he ’peared a tol’able pleasant enough sort o’ a leetle person, but I wasn’t in no frame o’ mind fer jollyin’.
“‘I was jest on me way up to your placet to see ye,’ he sais.
“‘Was ye?’ I answers. ‘Well—I heard ye was comin’. I’m jest on me way to store.’