OLD HURLEY ON THE WAR PATH.
“The old man gin one rattlin’ shout like a wounded gorrillar, when he seed me go. I knowed he’d be arter me mi’ty quick, so I broke through the gardin for the toll-road, the blarsted ole sash a-hangin’ around my neck like a hog-yoke, catchin’ on everythin’ as I ran. I hadn’t more’n struck the road and begun to dust along it, when I heered the old man comin’, a-snortin’ an’ a spatterin’, down the turnpike ahind me. I ‘lowed he’d overhaul me if I kept right on, ’cause I hadn’t got the sash off yet, and the blamed thing was jest ginnin’ my neck jess; so flouncin’ aside pooty sudden, I flopped down ahind a sassafras bush, and I hadn’t more’n got thar nuther when old Hurley went a-rackin’ and a rearin’ past, the bloodthirsty great meat-ax a-gleamin’ in his hand. He reckoned I was still ahead, so he went a-flukin’ down the road, clearin’ the toll-bar at one bounce, without so much as dustin’ it, and keepin’ right on for Gosport. Thunder! didn’t I tear off the ruins of that winder mity fast, though? Then I clim’ the fence, and took across lots through Hiram Nye’s corn patch, and down by Blake’s orchard, comin’ into town by the lower road. I think more’n likely old Hurley kept a-goin’ it plum to Gosport before he mistrusted that I dodged him; and I do jest think if he had got hold on me—a-bilin’ as he was—he wouldn’t have left a piece of me together large enough to bait a mink trap. Wasn’t that an all-fired close dodge, though? I reckon you’ll not see me in Gosport agin, leastways not while old Hurley’s a-livin’. I’ve no notion o’ gettin’ married in no such haste as that. Thar’s the bugle callin’ to muster—let’s hurry up and go.”
TRIALS OF THE FARMER.
I want to be a farmer
And with the farmers stand—
A whetstone in my pocket,
A blister on my hand.