But she is not loud enough.
"Tourtelot! you're asleep!"
"No," says the Deacon, rousing himself,—"only thinkin'."
"What are you thinkin' of, Tourtelot?"
"Thinkin'—thinkin'," says the Deacon, rasped by the dame's sharpness into sudden mental effort,—"thinkin', Huldy, if it isn't about time to butcher: we butchered last year nigh upon the twentieth."
"Nonsense!" says the dame; "what about the parson?"
"The parson? Oh! Why, the parson'll take a side and two hams."
"Nonsense!" says the dame, with a great voice; "you're asleep, Tourtelot. Is the parson goin' to marry, or isn't he? that's what I want to know"; and she rethreads her needle.
(She can do it by candle-light at fifty-five, that woman!)
"Oh, marry!" replies the Deacon, rousing himself more thoroughly,—"waäl, I don't see no signs, Huldy. If he doos mean to, he's sly about it; don't you think so, Huldy?"