"Yes'm."
"The pickels, and the chickens? I jest know you forgot the coffee, as if I could go all day without it. I never seed the like. Folks air gittin' mo' an' mo' keerless every day. Of co'se you could put in the pickels—had to do that to leave the coffee out. Now what prompted you to do that?"
"Do what, mother?"
"Why, leave that coffee out?"
"It's in the basket."
"Then why did you tell me you didn't fetch it? What do you want to torment a body fur? Now, Jasper, whut air you a settin' up here fur, a shakin' like a lump o' calf-foot jelly? You give me the fidgits."
"Wall, thar won't be nobody a laughin' now putty soon," said Jasper. "I kin see right now that these steers air goin' to run off inter the creek."
"They ain't a goin' to do no sich of a thing, an' you know it. Miz Mayfield, did you ever see sich carryin's-on?"
"I have never experienced a more delightful drive, Mrs. Starbuck. We read of the beautiful past, and it seems to me that to-day I have been permitted to live a hundred years ago. A hundred! Five hundred, and should not be surprised to see a troop of knights come galloping down the glen, with armor flashing and with poetic war-cries on their lips. Were you thinking of that, Mr. Reverend?"
"No, ma'm. I was thinking of the men, clothed in skins and with shepherd's crooks in their hands, carrying the gospel to the barbarians of old."