The Senator began to laugh and I looked at Mr. Peters for an explanation. He did not keep me waiting.
"I've got seven son-in-laws down yonder in my house right now," he said, "dusting" his hands again and putting them back on on the tire. "Every time a gal of mine gits married she goes away for a few days with her husband, and then fetches him back with the ague; and he settles down in my house and there he shakes. Got seven of them down there now a-shakin' fit to kill themselves. If you'll step over there on that rise, you can look down in the bottoms and see my house, and I'll bet you it's a-tremblin' like a leaf right now. Them seven fellers keep it a-shakin' all the time. Yes, Sir. Now, when Mag took a man, I says, says I, 'Mag, I have always looked on you as the smartest one of the family, and I want you to do me a favor; I want you to see if you can't take that feller of your'n so far away that he can't git back.' And, Sir, I sold my oats and give her the money, and she cleared out, but in less than a month here she come, with her husband shakin' like a wet dog. I told him to go in and find shakin' room if he could, and he crowded his way up to the fireplace, and there he sets this minute, a-shakin' like a pound of calfsfoot jelly."
"Look here, Bugg," said the Senator, laughing, "why don't you move out of the bottoms?"
"What, and go up in the hills and ketch some new-fangled disease that I don't know nothin' about? I reckon not, Senator. I've learned to let well enough alone, and jest ordinary everyday chills is good enough for me. Mister, how long are you goin' to be with us?" he inquired of me.
"I don't know exactly. I wanted to go yesterday, but the Senator wouldn't hear to it."
"Well, I don't reckon you are able to do much knockin' about yet. Don't believe I'd be snatched, anyway. Like for you to come down to see us before you go. I can show you about the finest and shakinest set of son-in-laws you ever saw. Did think somethin' of showin' 'em at the State Fair this fall. But say, gentlemen, you must sorter excuse me for stoppin' you; but I wanted to see the Senator on business."
The Senator gathered up the lines as if he had a suspicion of the business referred to, and therefore desired to drive on, but Mr. Peters in a distressful tone of voice implored him to wait a moment. "I want to ask a favor," he said. "Wouldn't do it if it wan't for the fact that they are all down there shakin' for dear life. I want to give you my note for ten dollars for thirty days. You know I'll take it up."
"Yes, if you should happen to find it," the Senator replied.
"Come, now, Senator, don't talk that way. You might give this here man that was blowed up a bad opinion of me. I've got the good opinion of everybody else, and I don't want the bad respects of a man that has fell down in amongst us."
"Bugg, how many of your thirty-day notes do you suppose I've got?"