"Eb was hevin' dinner with us too. He'd been scallopin' in an' out o' the house all the forenoon, an' I'd ask' him to set down an' hev a bite. But when he done even that, he done it kind of alien. Peleg Bemus, playin' his flute walkin' along the streets nights, like he does, seems more a rill citizen than Eb use' to, eatin' his dinner. Elspie, she'd got the whol' dinner—she was a rill good cook, an' that su'prised me as much as her dressin' my wrist the night before. She'd pampered me shameful all that mornin' too, an' I'd let her—when you've lived alone so long, it's kind o' nice to hev a person fussin' here an' there, an' Elspie seemed to love takin' care o' somebody. I declare, it seemed as if she done some things for me just for the sake o' doin' 'em—she was that kind. Timothy an' Silas wouldn't hev any dinner,—it was a boiled piece, too,—bein' as dinners o' their own was gettin' cold. But they set up against the edge o' the room so's we could be eatin' on.
"'Elspie,' says Timothy, 'you must be ready to go sharp seven o'clock Friday mornin'.'
"'Go where?' says Elspie. She hed on a black-an'-white stripe o' mine, an' her cheeks were some pink from standin' over the cook stove, an' she looked rill pretty.
"Timothy, he hesitated. But,—
"'To the Alice County poorhouse,' says Silas, blunt. Silas Sykes is a man that always says 'bloody' an' 'devil' an' 'coffin' right out instead o' 'bandaged' an' 'the Evil One,' an' 'casket.'
"'Oh!' says Elspie. 'Oh, ...' an' sort o' sunk down an' covered her mouth with her wrist an' looked at us over it.
"'The twenty o' you'll take the Dick Dasher,' says Timothy, then, 'an' it'll be a nice train ride for ye,' he says, some like an undertaker makin' small talk. But he see how Elspie took it, an' so he slid off the subjec' an' turned to Eb.
"'Little too early to know who's goin' to take the Merriman store, ain't it?' s'he, cheerful. Timothy ain't so everlastin' cheerful, either, but he always hearties himself all over when he talks, like he was a bell or a whistle an' he hed it to do.
"Eb, he dropped his knife on the floor.
"'Yes, yes,' he says flurried, 'yes, it is—' like he was rushin' to cover an' a 'yes' to agree was his best protection.