“Mighty souls!” gasped the Patriarch.
“Did ye look fer it?” asked the Miller, rising and moving toward the door.
“Well of course I looked. D’ye s’pose I ain’t ez anxious ez you to know which Desmon was kilt?”
“What does you mean be gittin’ us anxious,” yelled the old man. “Why don’t ye keep your troubles to yourself ’stead o’ unloadin’ em on other folks?”
“Don’t blame me that ’ay,” said the Loafer. “I done the best I could. I looked all over the store fer that page. I didn’t git no sleep last night jest from thinkin’ what become of it. Now I mind that last Soturday I seen a felly from Raccoon Walley carry it off wrapped ’round a pound o’ sugar. I done the best I could fer ye.”
The Teacher arose and walked to the end of the porch. Here he wheeled about and faced the company, stretching his legs wide apart, throwing out his chest and snapping his suspenders with his thumbs.
“You should never begin a story if you can’t tell it to the end,” he said. “I might as well teach my scholars how to add only half down a column of figures.”
“Yes,” said the Patriarch, “I would like to know most a mighty well which o’ them Desmon boys was kilt. But I’m too ole to chase a pound o’ sugar nine mile to Raccoon Walley to find out. They are terrible things, these struggles caused be onrastless human passions. This here petickler story is all the more terrible because them boys was cousins. While we do all feel a bit put out at not knowin’ which of ’em licked, we’ve at least learned somethin’ ’bout how they lives in Englan’. An’ it should teach us a lesson o’ thankfulness that we was born an’ raised in a walley where folks is sensible—that is most of ’em.”