"When we've got such guns?" she said, smiling down upon him, still standing on the chair.
"No, not such guns but men who do such deeds and women who are proud of them."
Jasper looked round and saw that the young man in his carelessness had the gun pointed at him. "Here," he called, "turn that thing tuther way."
"Why it isn't loaded, is it?" Tom asked, returning the gun to Lou.
"No, but them's the sort that usually goes off and kills folks. Thar's an old sayin', ma'm," he said to Mrs. Mayfield, "that thar's danger in a gun without lock, stock, or barrel—you kin w'ar a feller out with the ram-rod."
Lou replaced the gun and sat down. Tom stood over her, slily showing her some verses. Mrs. Mayfield, glancing round, understood that it was a "poetic situation," and remarked to Jasper. "Just now we were speaking of trouble. Heart-hunger is the real poetry of life—heart-hunger and heart-ache; our pleasures are but jingling rhymes."
Jasper and his wife exchanged glances, and the old man said: "Husband dead, ma'm?"
"Worse than that, Mr. Starbuck."
"Why, ain't that awful," Margaret declared.
Jasper studied for a few moments and then inquired: "Wan't hung, was he?"