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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.
So I go about flashing my saber of independence: "Ol' Ephr'm Johnson was a deacon of de church in Tennessee, An' of course it was ag'inst de rules t' sing ragtime melodée!" But I am the one, I notice, who always makes up first. To-night as I was making cocoa before we went to bed I tried to tell my Diddums there was something positively doglike in my devotion to him.
"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.
He picked his way carefully to shore and up the bank and reined up his dripping horse in the midst of us with a laugh. "Hats full, pockets full, eh? Good-evenin', naybours, and a merry Christmas, and I'm sure I wish you may get it. Which of 'ee may happen to be Master Ephr'm Lantine?" My father announced himself, and the trooper drew out a parchment and handed it.
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.
"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.
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.
"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.
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