“YE don’t say?”
“I do though.”
“Wa’al, I never.”
“Nuther did I—adzackly.”
“Don’t be provokin’, Ephr’m—what makes you talk in that dou’fle way?”
“Wa’al, ma, the world hain’t all squeezed into this yere little town of Crankett. I’ve been elsewheres, some, an’ I’ve seed some funny things, and likewise some that wuzn’t so funny ez they might be.”
“P’r’aps ye hev, but ye needn’t allus be a-settin’ other folks down. Mebbe Crankett ain’t the whole world, but it’s seed that awful case of Molly Capins, and the shipwreck of thirty-four, when the awful nor’easter wuz, an’——”
“Wa’al, wa’al, ma—don’t let’s fight ’bout it,” said Ephr’m, with a sigh, as he tenderly scraped down a new ax-helve with a piece of glass, while his wife made the churn-dasher hurry up and down as if the innocent cream was Ephr’m’s back, and she was avenging thereon Ephr’m’s insults to Crankett and its people.
Deacon Ephraim Crankett was a descendant of the founder of the village, and although now a sixty-year old farmer, he had in his lifetime seen considerable of the world. He had been to the fishing-banks a dozen times, been whaling twice, had carried a cargo of wheat up the Mediterranean, and had been second officer of a ship which had picked up a miscellaneous cargo in the heathen ports of Eastern Asia.
JIM HOCKSON’S REVENGE—“HE HELD IT UNDER THE LIGHT, AND EXAMINED IT CLOSELY.”
He had picked up a great many ideas, too, wherever he had been, and his wife was immensely proud of him and them, whenever she could compare them with the men and ideas which existed at Crankett; but when Ephr’m displayed his memories and knowledge to her alone—oh, that was a very different thing.
“Anyhow,” resumed Mrs. Crankett, raising the lid of the churn to see if there were any signs of butter, “it’s an everlastin’ shame. Jim Hockson’s a young feller in good standin’ in the Church, an’ Millie Botayne’s an unbeliever—they say her father’s a reg’lar infidel.”
“Easy, ma, easy,” gently remonstrated Ephr’m. “When he seed you lookin’ at his pet rose-bush on yer way to church las’ Sunday, didn’t he hurry an’ pull two or three an’ han’ ’em to ye?”
“Yes, an’ what did he hev’ in t’other han’?—a Boasting paper, an’ not a Sunday one, nuther! Millicent ain’t a Christian name, nohow ye can fix it—it amounts to jest ’bout’s much ez she does, an’ that’s nothing. She’s got a soft face, an’ purty hair—ef it’s all her own, which I powerfully doubt—an’ after that ther’s nothin’ to her. She’s never been to sewin’ meetin’, an’ she’s off a boatin’ with that New York chap every Saturday afternoon, instead of goin’ to the young people’s prayer-meetin’s.”
“She’s most supported Sam Ransom’s wife an’ young uns since Sam’s smack was lost,” suggested Ephr’m.
“That’s you, Deac’n Crankett,” replied his wife, “always stick up for sinners. P’r’aps you’d make better use of your time ef you’d examine yer own evidences.”
“Wa’al, wife,” said the deacon, “she’s engaged to that New York feller, ez you call Mr. Brown, so there’s no danger of Jim bein’ onequally yoked with an onbeliever. An’ I wish her well, from the bottom of my heart.”
“I don’t,” cried Mrs. Crankett, giving the dasher a vicious push, which sent the cream flying frantically up to the top of the churn; “I hope he’ll turn out bad, an’ her pride’ll be tuk down ez——”
The deacon had been long enough at sea to know the signs of a long storm, and to know that prudence suggested a prompt sailing out of the course of such a storm, when possible; so he started for the door, carrying the glass and ax-helve with him. Suddenly the door opened, and a female figure ran so violently against the ax-helve, that the said figure was instantly tumbled to the floor, and seemed an irregular mass of faded pink calico, and subdued plaid shawl.
“Miss Peekin!” exclaimed Mrs. Crankett, dropping the churn-dasher and opening her eyes.
“Like to ha’ not been,” whined the figure, slowly arising and giving the offending ax-helve a glance which would have set it on fire had it not been of green hickory; “but—hev you heerd?”
“What?” asked Mrs. Crankett, hastily setting a chair for the newcomer, while Ephr’m, deacon and sixty though he was, paused in his almost completed exit.
“He’s gone!” exclaimed Miss Peekin.
“Oh, I heerd Jim hed gone to Califor——”
“Pshaw!” said Miss Peekin, contemptuously; “that was days ago! I mean Brown—the New York chap—Millie Botayne’s lover!”
“Ye don’t?”
“But I do; an’ what’s more, he had to. Ther wuz men come after him in the nighttime, but he must hev heard ’em, fur they didn’t find him in his room, an’ this mornin’ they found that his sailboat was gone, too. An’ what’s more, ther’s a printed notice up about him, an’ he’s a defaulter, and there’s five thousand dollars for whoever catches him, an’ he’s stole twenty-five, an’ he’s all described in the notice, as p’ticular as if he was a full-blood Alderney cow.”
“Poor fellow,” sighed the deacon, for which interruption he received a withering glance from Miss Peekin.
“They say Millie’s a-goin’ on awful, and that she sez she’ll marry him now if he’ll come back. But it ain’t likely he’ll be such a fool; now he’s got so much money, he don’t need hern. Reckon her an’ her father won’t be so high an’ mighty an’ stuck up now. It’s powerful discouragin’ to the righteous to see the ungodly flourishin’ so, an’ a-rollin’ in ther wealth, when ther betters has to be on needles all year fur fear the next mack’ril catch won’t ‘mount to much. The idee of her bein’ willin’ to marry a defaulter! I can’t understand it.”
“Poor girl!” sighed Mrs. Crankett, wiping one eye with the corner of her apron. “I’d do it myself, ef I was her?”
The deacon dropped the ax-helve, and gave his wife a tender kiss on each eye.
PERHAPS Mr. Darwin can tell inquirers why, out of very common origin, there occasionally spring beings who are very decided improvements on their progenitors; but we are only able to state that Jim Hockson was one of these superior beings, and was himself fully aware of the fact. Not that he was conceited at all, for he was not, but he could not help seeing what every one else saw and acknowledged.
Every one liked him, for he was always kind in word and action, and every one was glad to be Jim Hockson’s friend; but somehow Jim seemed to consider himself his best company.
His mackerel lines were worked as briskly as any others when the fish were biting; but when the fish were gone, he would lean idly on the rail, and stare at the waves and clouds; he could work a cranberry-bog so beautifully that the people for miles around came to look on and take lessons; yet, when the sun tried to hide in the evening behind a ragged row of trees on a ridge beyond Jim’s cranberry-patch, he would lean on his spade, and gaze until everything about him seemed yellow.
He read the Bible incessantly, yet offended alike the pious saints and critical sinners by never preaching or exhorting. And out of everything Jim Hockson seemed to extract what it contained of the ideal and the beautiful; and when he saw Millicent Botayne, he straightway adored the first woman he had met who was alike beautiful, intelligent and refined. Miss Millie, being human, was pleased by the admiration of the handsome, manly fellow who seemed so far the superior of the men of his class; but when, in his honest simplicity, he told her that he loved her, she declined his further attentions in a manner which, though very delicate and kind, opened Jim’s blue eyes to some sad things he had never seen before.
He neither got drunk, nor threatened to kill himself, nor married the first silly girl he met; but he sensibly left the place where he had suffered so greatly, and, in a sort of sad daze, he hurried off to hide himself in the newly discovered gold-fields of California. Perhaps he had suddenly learned certain properties of gold which were heretofore unknown to him; at any rate, it was soon understood at Spanish Stake, where he had located himself, that Jim Hockson got out more gold per week than any man in camp, and that it all went to San Francisco.
“Kind of a mean cuss, I reckon,” remarked a newcomer, one day at the saloon, when Jim alone, of the crowd present, declined to drink with him.
“Not any!” replied Colonel Two, so called because he had two eyes, while another colonel in the camp had but one. “An’ it’s good for you, stranger,” continued the colonel, “that you ain’t been long in camp, else some of the boys ’ud put a hole through you for sayin’ anything ’gainst Jim; for we all swear by him, we do. He don’t carry shootin’-irons, but no feller in camp dares to tackle him; he don’t cuss nobody, but ev’rybody does just as he asks ’em to. As to drinkin’, why, I’d swear off myself, ef ’twud make me hold a candle to him. Went to old Bermuda t’other day, when he was ravin’ tight and layin’ for Butcher Pete with a shootin’-iron, an’ he actilly talked Bermuda into soakin’ his head an’ turnin’ in—ev’rybody else was afeard to go nigh old Bermuda that day.”
The newcomer seemed gratified to learn that Jim was so peaceable a man—that was the natural supposition, at least—for he forthwith cultivated Jim with considerable assiduity, and being, it was evident, a man of considerable taste and experience, Jim soon found his companionship very agreeable, and he lavished upon his new acquaintance, who had been nicknamed Tarpaulin, the many kind and thoughtful attentions which had endeared Jim to the other miners.
The two men lived in the same hut, staked claims adjoining each other, and Tarpaulin, who had been thin and nervous-looking when he first came to camp, began to grow peaceable and plump under Jim’s influence.
One night, as Jim and Tarpaulin lay chatting before a fire in their hut, they heard a thin, wiry voice in the next hut inquiring:
“Anybody in this camp look like this?”
Tarpaulin started.
“That’s a funny question,” said he; “let’s see who and what the fellow is.”
And then Tarpaulin started for the next hut. Jim waited some time, and hearing low voices in earnest conversation, went next door himself.
Tarpaulin was not there, but two small, thin, sharp-eyed men were there, displaying an old-fashioned daguerreotype of a handsome-looking young man, dressed in the latest New York style; and more than this Jim did not notice.
“Don’t know him, mister,” said Colonel Two, who happened to be the owner of the hut. “Besides ef, as is most likely, he’s growed long hair an’ a beard since he left the States, his own mother wouldn’t know him from George Washington. Brother o’ yourn?”
“No,” said one of the thin men; “he’s—well, the fact is, we’ll give a thousand dollars to any one who’ll find him for us in twenty-four hours.”
“Deppity sheriffs?” asked the colonel, retiring somewhat hastily under his blankets.
“About the same thing,” said one of the thin men, with a sickly smile.
“Git!” roared the colonel, suddenly springing from his bed, and cocking his revolver. “I b’lieve in the Golden Rule, I do!”
The detectives, with the fine instinct peculiar to their profession, rightly construed the colonel’s action as a hint, and withdrew, and Jim retired to his own hut, and fell asleep while waiting for his partner.
Morning came, but no Tarpaulin; dinner-time arrived, but Jim ate alone, and was rather blue. He loved a sociable chat, and of late Tarpaulin had been almost his sole companion.
Evening came, but Tarpaulin came not.
Jim couldn’t abide the saloon for a whole evening, so he lit a candle in his own hut, and attempted to read.
Tarpaulin was a lover of newspapers—it seemed to Jim he received more papers than all the remaining miners put together.
Jim thought he would read some of these same papers, and unrolled Tarpaulin’s blankets to find them, when out fell a picture-case, opening as it fell. Jim was about to close it again, when he suddenly started, and exclaimed:
“Millicent Botayne!”
He held it under the light, and examined it closely.
There could be no doubt as to identity—there were the same exquisite features which, a few months before, had opened to Jim Hockson a new world of beauty, and had then, with a sweet yet sad smile, knocked down all his fair castles, and destroyed all his exquisite pictures.
Strange that it should appear to him now, and so unexpectedly, but stranger did it seem to Jim that on the opposite side of the case should be a portrait which was a duplicate of the one shown by the detectives!
“That rascal Brown!” exclaimed Jim. “So he succeeded in getting her, did he? But I shouldn’t call him names; he had as much right to make love to her as I. God grant he may make her happy! And he is probably a very fine fellow—must be, by his looks.”
Suddenly Jim started, as if shocked by an electric battery. Hiding all the hair and beard of the portrait, he stared at it a moment, and exclaimed:
“Tarpaulin!”
“BOTH gone!” exclaimed Colonel Two, hurrying into the saloon, at noon.
“Both gone?” echoed two or three men.
“Yes,” said the colonel; “and the queerest thing is, they left ev’rything behind—every darned thing! I never did see such a stampede afore—I didn’t! Nobody’s got any idee of whar they be, nor what it’s ’bout neither.”
“Don’t be too sartain, colonel!” piped Weasel, a self-contained mite of a fellow, who was still at work upon his glass, filled at the last general treat, although every one else had finished so long ago that they were growing thirsty again—“don’t be too sartain. Them detectives bunked at my shanty last night.”
“The deuce they did!” cried the colonel. “Good the rest of us didn’t know it.”
“Well,” said Weasel, moving his glass in graceful circles, to be sure that all the sugar dissolved, “I dunno. It’s a respectable business, an’ I wanted to have a good look at ’em.”
“What’s that got to do with Jim and Tarpaulin?” look at demanded the colonel, fiercely.
“Wait, and I’ll tell you,” replied Weasel, provokingly, taking a leisurely sip at his glass. “Jim come down to see ’em——”
“What?” cried the colonel.
“An’ told ’em he knew their man, an’ would help find him,” continued Weasel. “They offered him the thousand dollars——”
“Oh, Lord! oh, Lord!” groaned the colonel; “who’s a feller to trust in this world! The idee of Jim goin’ back on a pardner fur a thousand! I wouldn’t hev b’lieved he’d a-done it fur a million!”
“An’ he told ’em he’d cram it down their throats if they mentioned it again.”
“Bully! Hooray fur Jim!” shouted the colonel. “What’ll yer take, fellers? Fill high! Here’s to Jim! the feller that b’lieves his friend’s innercent!”
The colonel looked thoughtfully into his glass, and remarked, as if to his own reflection therein, “Ain’t many such men here nur nowhars else!” after which he drank the toast himself.
“But that don’t explain what Tarpaulin went fur,” said the colonel, suddenly.
“Yes, it does,” said the exasperating Weasel, shutting his thin lips so tightly that it was hard to see where his mouth was.
“What?” cried the colonel. “’Twould take a four-horse corkscrew to get anything out o’ you, you dried-up little scoundrel!”
“Why!” replied Weasel, greatly pleased by the colonel’s compliment, “after what you said about hair and beard hidin’ a man, one of them fellers cut a card an’ held it over the picture, so as to hide hair an’ chin. The forehead an’ face an’ nose an’ ears wuz Tarpaulin’s, an’ nobody else’s.”
“Lightning’s blazes!” roared the colonel. “Ha, ha, ha! why, Tarpaulin hisself came into my shanty, an’ looked at the pictur’, an’ talked to them ’bout it! Trot out yer glass-ware, barkeeper—got to drink to a feller that’s ez cool ez all that!”
The boys drank with the colonel, but they were too severely astonished to enjoy the liquor particularly. In fact, old Bermuda, who had never taken anything but plain rye, drank three fingers of claret that day, and did not know of it until told.
The colonel’s mind was unusually excited. It seemed to him there were a number of probabilities upon which to hang bets. He walked outside, that his meditation might be undisturbed, but in an instant he was back, crying:
“Lady comin’!”
Shirt-sleeves and trowsers-legs were hurriedly rolled down, shirt-collars were buttoned, hats were dusted, and then each man went leisurely out, with the air of having merely happened to leave the saloon—an air which imposed upon no disinterested observer.
Coming up the trail beside the creek were a middle-aged gentleman and a young lady, both on horseback.
The gentleman’s dress and general style plainly indicated that he was not a miner, nor a storekeeper, nor a barkeeper; while it was equally evident that the lady was neither a washerwoman, a cook, nor a member of either of the very few professions which were open to ladies on the Pacific Coast in those days.
This much every miner quickly decided for himself; but after so deciding, each miner reached the uttermost extremity of his wits, and devoted himself to staring.
The couple reined up before the saloon, and the gentleman drew something small and black and square from his pocket.
“Gentlemen,” said he, “we are looking for an old friend of ours, and have traced him to this camp. We scarcely know whether it would be any use to give his name, but here is his picture. Can any one remember having seen the person here?”
Every one looked toward Colonel Two, he being the man with the most practical tongue in camp.
The colonel took the picture, and Weasel slipped up behind him and looked over his shoulder. The colonel looked at the picture, abruptly handed it back, looked at the young lady, and then gazed vacantly into space, and seemed very uncomfortable.
“Been here, but gone,” said the colonel, at length.
“Where did he go, do you know?” asked the gentleman, while the lady’s eyes dropped wearily.
“Nobody knows—only been gone a day or two,” replied the colonel.
The colonel had a well-developed heart, and, relying on what he considered the correct idea of Jim Hockson’s mission, ventured to say:
“He’ll be back in a day or two—left all his things.”
Suddenly Weasel raised his diminutive voice, and said:
“The detec——”
The determined grip of the colonel’s hand interrupted the communication which Weasel attempted to make, and the colonel hastily remarked:
“Ther’s a feller gone for him that’s sure to fetch him back.”
“Who—who is it?” asked the young lady, hesitatingly.
“Well, ma’am,” said the colonel, “as yer father—I s’pose, leastways—said, ’tain’t much use to give names in this part of the world, but the name he’s goin’ by is Jim Hockson.”
The young lady screamed and fell.
“WHETHER to do it or not, is what bothers me,” soliloquized Mr. Weasel, pacing meditatively in front of the saloon. “The old man offers me two thousand to get Tarpaulin away from them fellers, and let him know where to meet him an’ his daughter. Two thousand’s a pretty penny, an’ the bein’ picked out by so smart a lookin’ man is an honor big enough to set off agin’ a few hundred dollars more. But, on t’other hand, if they catch him, they’ll come back here, an’ who knows but what they’ll want the old man an’ girl as bad as they wanted Tarpaulin? A bird in the hand’s worth two in the bush—better keep near the ones I got, I reckon. Here they come now!”
As Mr. Weasel concluded his dialogue with himself, Mr. Botayne and Millicent approached, in company with the colonel.
The colonel stopped just beyond the saloon, and said:
“Now, here’s your best p’int—you can see the hill-trail fur better’n five miles, an’ the crick fur a mile an’ a half. I’ll jest hev a shed knocked together to keep the lady from the sun. An’ keep a stiff upper lip, both of yer—trust Jim Hockson; nobody in the mines ever knowed him to fail.”
Millicent shivered at the mention of Jim’s name, and the colonel, unhappily ignorant of the cause of her agitation, tried to divert her mind from the chances of harm to Tarpaulin by growing eloquent in praise of Jim Hockson.
Suddenly the colonel himself started and grew pale. He quickly recovered himself, however, and, with the delicacy of a gentleman, walked rapidly away, as Millicent and her father looked in the direction from which the colonel’s surprise came.
There, handcuffed, with beard and hair singed close, clothes torn and face bleeding, walked Ethelbert Brown between the two detectives, while Jim Hockson, with head bowed and hands behind his back, followed a few yards behind.
Some one gave the word at the saloon, and the boys hurried out, but the colonel pointed significantly toward the sorrowful couple, while with the other hand he pointed an ugly pistol, cocked, toward the saloon.
Millicent hurried from her father’s side, and flung her arms about the sorry figure of her lover; and Jim Hockson, finding his pathway impeded, raised his eyes, and then blushed violently.
“Sorry for you, sir,” said one of the detectives, touching his hat to Mr. Botayne, “but can’t help being glad we got a day ahead of you.”
“What amount of money will buy your prisoner?” demanded the unhappy father.
“Beg pardon, sir—very sorry, but—we’d be compounding felony in that case, you know,” replied one of the officers, gazing with genuine pity on the weeping girl.
“Don’t worry,” whispered the colonel in Mr. Botayne’s ear; “we’ll clean out them two fellers, and let Tarpaulin loose again. Ev’ry feller come here for somethin’, darn it!” with which sympathizing expression the colonel again retired.
“I’ll give you as much as the bank offers,” said Mr. Botayne.
“Very sorry, sir; but can’t,” replied the detective. “We’d be just as bad then in the eyes of the law as before. Reward, five thousand, bank lose twenty-five thousand—thirty thousand, in odd figures, is least we could take. Even that wouldn’t be reg’lar; but it would be a safe risk, seeing all the bank cares for’s to get its money back.”
Mr. Botayne groaned.
“We’ll make it as pleasant as we can for you, sir,” continued the detective, “if you and the lady’ll go back on the ship with us. We’ll give him the liberty of the ship as soon as we’re well away from land. We’d consider it our duty to watch him, of course; but we’d try to do it so’s not to give offense—we’ve got hearts, though we are in this business. Hope you can buy him clear when you get home, sir?”
“I’ve sacrificed everything to get here—I can never clear him,” sighed Mr. Botayne.
“I can!” exclaimed a clear, manly voice.
Millicent raised her eyes, and for the first time saw Jim Hockson.
She gave him a look in which astonishment, gratitude and fear strove for the mastery, and he gave her a straight-forward, honest, respectful look in return.
The two detectives dropped their lower jaws alarmingly, and raised their eyebrows to their hat-rims.
“The bank at San Francisco has an agent here,” said Jim. “Colonel, won’t you fetch him?”
The colonel took a lively double-quick, and soon returned with a business-looking man.
“Mr. Green,” said Jim, “please tell me how much I have in your bank?”
The clerk looked over a small book he extracted from his pocket, and replied, briefly:
“Over two thousand ounces.”
“Please give these gentlemen a check, made whatever way they like it, for the equivalent of thirty thousand dollars. I’ll sign it,” said Jim.
The clerk and one of the detectives retired to an adjacent hut, and soon called Jim. Jim joined them, and immediately he and the officer returned to the prisoner.
“It’s all right, Maxley,” said the officer; “let him go.”
The officer removed the handcuffs, and Ethelbert Brown was free. His first motion was to seize Jim’s hand.
“Hockson, tell me why you helped those detectives,” said he.
“Revenge!” replied Jim.
“For what?” cried Brown, changing color.
“Gaining Millie Botayne’s love,” replied Jim.
Brown looked at Millicent, and read the story from her face.
He turned toward Jim a wondering look, and asked, slowly:
“Then, why did you free me?”
“Because she loved you,” said Jim, and then he walked quietly away.
“WHY, Miss Peekin!”
“It’s a fact: Eben Javash, that went out better’n a year ago, hez got back, and he wuz at the next diggins an’ heerd all about it. ‘T seems the officers ketched Brown, an’ Jim Hockson gave ’em thirty thousand dollars to pay them an’ the bank too, and then they let him go. Might’s well ha kept his money, though, seein’ Brown washed overboard on the way back.
“I ain’t a bettin’ man,” said the deacon, “but I’d risk our white-faced cow that them thirty thousand dollars preached the greatest sermon ever heerd in Californy—ur in Crankett either.”
Miss Peekin threw a withering glance at the deacon; it was good he was not on trial for heresy, with Miss Peekin for judge and jury. She continued:
“Eben says there was a fellow named Weasel that hid close by, an’ heerd all ’twas said, and when he went to the rum-shop an’ told the miners, they hooray’d for Jim ez ef they wuz mad. Just like them crazy fellers—they hain’t no idee when money’s wasted.”
“The Lord waste all the money in the world that way!” devoutly exclaimed the deacon.
“An’ that feller Weasel,” continued Miss Peekin, giving the deacon’s pet cat a vicious kick, “though he’d always been economical, an’ never set a bad example before by persuadin’ folk to be intemprit, actilly drored a pistol, and fit with a feller they called Colonel Two—fit for the chance of askin’ the crowd to drink to Jim Hockson, an’ then went aroun’ to all the diggins, tellin’ about Jim, an’ wastin’ his money treatin’ folks to drink good luck to Jim. Dis—graceful!”
“It’s what I’d call a powerful conversion,” remarked the deacon.
“But ther’s more,” said Miss Peekin, with a sigh, and yet with an air of importance befitting the bearer of wonderful tidings.
“What?” eagerly asked Mrs. Crankett.
“Jim’s back,” said Miss Peekin.
“Mercy on us!” cried Mrs. Crankett.
“The Lord bless and prosper him!” earnestly exclaimed the deacon.
“Well,” said Miss Peekin, with a disgusted look, “I s’pose He will, from the looks o’ things; fur Eben sez that when Weasel told the fellers how it all wuz, they went to work an’ put gold-dust in a box fur Jim till ther wus more than he giv fur Brown, an’ fellers from all round’s been sendin’ him dust ever since. He’s mighty sight the richest man anywhere near this town.”
“Good—bless the Lord!” said the deacon, with delight.
“Ye hain’t heerd all of it, though,” continued Miss Peekin, with a funereal countenance. “They’re going to be married.”
“Sakes alive!” gasps Mrs. Crankett.
“It’s so,” said Miss Peekin; “an’ they say she sent for him, by way of the Isthmus, an’ he come back that way. Bad enough to marry him, when poor Brown hain’t been dead six months, but to send for him——”
“Wuz a real noble, big-hearted, womanly thing to do,” declared Mrs. Crankett, snatching off her spectacles; “an’ I’d hev done it myself ef I’d been her.”
The deacon gave his old wife an enthusiastic hug; upon seeing which Miss Peekin hastily departed, with a severely shocked expression of countenance and a nose aspiring heavenward.
