United States or Slovenia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"It's most a wonder to me that he ever took the crape off'm the door-knob," remarked Hiram, in a husky aside to the Cap'n, not intending to be overheard and somewhat crestfallen to find that he had been. "I didn't for some time, till it got faded," explained Mr. Gammon, without display of resentment. "I had the casket-plate mounted on black velvet and framed. It's in the settin'-room.
Reeves," she said, "you've been lyin' to me two weeks, tryin' to buy that rooster that I wouldn't sell no more'n I'd sell my first husband's gravestun'. And when you couldn't git it by lyin', you stole it off'm the roost to-night. And to make sure there won't be any more lies, I've followed you right here to find out the truth. Now what does this mean?" There was a soulful pause.
"We'll jes' blow 'em off'm de fahm," they had said, before there was an enemy in sight. Now, every time the foe would charge us, some of the darkies would cry: "Heah dey come! De whole country is alive wif 'em. Dere must be ten thousand ob dem. Massa Bill, does you-all reckon we is ebber gwine to get out o' heah?"
He shook the cow's horn under the Cap'n's nose. "Why ain't you been down and dug it up?" asked Hiram, with cold practicality. "Diggin' old Cap Kidd's treasure ain't like digging a mess of potaters for dinner, Mr. Look. The song says 'Cod Lead Nubble. Old Cap Kidd composed that song, and he put in the wrong place just to throw folks off'm the track.
'No, I says, 'I ain't buyin' no real estate jest now, but the thing I come in fer, I says, 'leavin' out the pleasure of havin' a talk with you, was to say that I'd take that morgidge off'm your hands. "Wa'al, sir, he, he, he, he! Scat my ! At that he looked at me fer a minute with his jaw on his neck, an' then he hunched himself, 'n drawed in his neck like a mud turtle.
You've lived among them here all your life, Louada Murilla, and I s'pose you've got more or less wonted to 'em. But if I hadn't squirmed and thrashed round a little durin' the time I've lived here, after marryin' you and settlin' down among 'em, they'd have et me, honey, money, hide, and hair. As it is, they've got their little lunch off'm me. I haven't thrashed round enough till till yistiddy."
"You might jest as well settle with me now as later through the law," he cried. But the Cap'n butted him aside, with an oath, and climbed into the wagon. "You drive as though the devil had kicked ye," he yelled to Todd. "It's my hoss, and I don't care if you run the four legs off'm him." Half-way to Ide's, a man leaped the roadside fence and jumped up and down before them in the highway.
Vienna realized it, too, for with a howl of protest her men came swarming into the square. "Souse the hide off'm the red-bellied sons of Gehenna!" Hiram yelled, and the hosemen, obedient to the word, swept the hissing stream on the enemy. Men who will face bullets will run from hornets. Men who will charge cannon can be routed by water.
He's the one that ran them Nebraska farmers off'm the Mary Mattock down yander: give 'em notice that he was goin' to sink on them upper claims o' his'n at the gulch head, and that his sump water'd have to be turned loose to go where it had a mind to which'd be straight down the gulch, o' course.
The' was a story that some far-off relation left old Billy some money, an' I guess that an' what they got off'm what farms was left carried 'em along till Billy P. was twenty-five or so, an' then he up an' got married. That was the crownin' stroke," remarked David.
Word Of The Day