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"There's a stone in the graveyard to you," went on the Cap'n, clawing his stubby fingers into his bristle of hair, "and they've always called her 'Widder Crymble' and" he stood up again and leaned forward over the table in the attitude of Jove about to launch a thunderbolt and gasped "she's goin' to get married to Bat Reeves, Tuesday of next week and he's the most infernal scalawag in this town, and he's took her after he's tried about every other old maid and widder that's got property."
The Cap'n, with chin over his shoulder, saw Mr. Crymble scuff aside some frozen dirt in a corner of the barnyard, raise a plank with his bony fingers and insert his slender figure into the crevice disclosed, with all the suppleness of a snake. The plank dropped over his head, and his hiding-place was hidden. But while he and Hiram stood looking at the place where Mr.
In its fall it had lodged upon soil and rocks, and when it was raised, gingerly and slowly, they found that, below in the cavern it had preserved, there sat Mr. Crymble, up to his shoulders in dirt. "If some gent will kindly pass me a chaw of tobacker," he said, wistfully, "it will kind of keep up my strength and courage till the rest of me is dug up."
Crymble had been hastening to the door, the sound of her suitor's wagon-wheels summoning her. A glimpse of the tall figure in the yard, secured past the leaves of the window geraniums, brought her out on the run. Mrs. Delora Crymble, whose natural stock of self-reliance had been largely improved by twenty years of grass-widowhood, was not easily unnerved.
I've been away from here twenty years, but I guess the old residents will recognize me, all right." "But," declared the Cap'n, floundering for a mental footing, "it's always been said to me that Dependence Crymble died off away somewhere." "I've already told you I died," said the thin man, still mild but firm. "That's right, just as you've heard it."
"I don't propose to have no bill of expense run up on me," announced Mrs. Crymble, "I've paid out for him all I'm goin' to, and I got done long ago." "Bereaved and lovin' widder heard, neighbors and friends," said the Cap'n, significantly. "Now go ahead, people, and believe what she says about us, if you want to! Get to work here." "You sha'n't stir a shovelful of that dirt," declared Mrs.
You ain't northin' else, when it comes to law. I'm a hard man when I'm madded, Crymble, and if I start in to keelhaul you for disobeyin' orders you'll " The Cap'n did not complete the sentence, but he bent such a look on the man in the chair that he trembled through all his frail length. "I wisht I could have stayed dead," whimpered Mr. Crymble, thoroughly spirit-broken.
The Crymble place was a full half mile outside the village of Smyrna, but Cap'n Sproul and his victim covered the distance at a lively pace and swung into the yard at a dog-trot. Batson Reeves was just blanketing his horse, for in his vigorous courtship forenoon calls figured regularly.
"There ain't nobody goin' to try to do it," said the Cap'n, coming up to him with frankly outstretched hand. He patted the rocks gently from the arms of the indignant Mr. Crymble. "As a gen'ral thing I stand up for matrimony and stand up for it firm but I reckon I didn't understand your case, Crymble. I apologize, and we'll shake hands on it.
"What more is there to do?" "Go down to the graveyard and get that stone of his and set it here," replied Cap'n Sproul, with bitter sarcasm. "Go somewhere to get out of my way here, for if you or any other human polecat, male or female" he directed withering glance at Mrs. Crymble "gets in my way whilst I'm doin' what's to be done, if we ain't heathen, I'll split 'em down with this barn shovel."
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