"Well, walk in, we'll leave it to the women," said he.
So we walked in, surprised, and sat down, an old woman taking our hats and bundles, and the old man continued, drawing up to the large, old-fashioned fireplace,—
"I am a poor good-for-nothing crittur, as Isaiah says; I am all broken down this year. I am under petticoat-government here."
The family consisted of the old man, his wife, and his daughter, who appeared nearly as old as her mother,—a fool, her son, (a brutish-looking, middle-aged man, with a prominent lower face, who was standing by the hearth when we entered, but immediately went out,) and a little boy of ten.
While my companion talked with the women, I talked to the old man. They said that he was old and foolish, but he was evidently too knowing for them.
"These women," said he to me, "are both of them poor good-for-nothing critturs. This one is my wife. I married her sixty-four years ago. She is eighty-four years old, and as deaf as an adder, and the other is not much better."
He thought well of the Bible,—or at least he spoke well, and did not think ill, of it, for that would not have been prudent for a man of his age. He said that he had read it attentively for many years, and he had much of it at his tongue's end. He seemed deeply impressed with a sense of his own nothingness, and would repeatedly exclaim,—
"I am a nothing. What I gather from my Bible is just this: that man is a poor good-for-nothing crittur, and everything is just as God sees fit and disposes."
"May I ask your name?" I said.
"Yes," he answered,—"I am not ashamed to tell my name. My name is ——. My great-grandfather came over from England and settled here."