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I asked softly, using the name that a very small I had given him in a long ago when the world was young and not full of problems. "That's not the worst, Evelina," he answered in a voice that was positively haggard. "But what belongs to the rest of the family is all in the same leaky craft. Carruthers put Sallie's in himself, but I invested the mites belonging to the others.
"Over to Aunt Sallie's," he said. His long, linen duster was sagging at the sides, and peering down at his pockets I perceived a couple of quarts of lovely Siberian crab-apples. "Where did you get all that fruit?" I demanded. "At home." "What are you going to do with it?" "Take it back again." "What do you mean by such a performance?"
He's the workingest man in this here county, ba thundas! What! Jim he don't sit 'round like you fellers down on th' creek an' wait fer pawpaws to git ripe, so he can git a square meal, ba thundas!" The bold mountaineer wilted. Uncle Ike proceeded with the business of his office. "Here's Sallie Rhodes done writ her maw a card from th' Corners. Sallie's been a visitin' her paw's folks.
"By the way, Chamberlain," said Aleck, "we must get a telegram off to the family in Lynn." He wrote out the address and shoved it across Sallie's red kitchen tablecloth. "And tell them not to think of coming!" adjured Aleck. "We don't want any more of a swarry here than we've got now."
Carruthers this afternoon, and I have never had my sympathies so stirred. We must help her, my dear friend!" I never enjoyed anything more in my life than the hour I spent helping that dear, good, funny man plan first aids to the rearing of Sallie's children. Besides my coöperation he has planned to enlist that of Aunt Augusta, and I was wicked enough to let him do it.
It is little wonder, surely, that Sallie's voice faltered that same evening, as she explained to Mart, who had slipped in for a bit of talk, that if ever she wanted to go anywhere very bad, she was to let Sallie know, and she should have her cape and bonnet to wear.
"Bless me! I forgot that you were a bachelor," he replied, when his risibles had subsided sufficiently for him to talk. "If you ever marry, you'll find out who's boss. The niggers call me boss and Marse, but Sallie's boss of our plantation!" We drove about town for perhaps half an hour, purchasing a supply of groceries, then our horse's head was turned towards the open country.
The big tears ran right down Sallie's pretty pink cheeks, and her mother and grandmother, and cook, too, came running to see what was the matter. The little forefinger told the story, and it had to be wrapped in some cooling salve and a soft piece of linen.
There is a light wind from the north-west to north-north- west, and the weather is fine. We are twenty-eight men with forty-nine dogs, including Sue's and Sallie's five grown-up pups.
Sallie was only a little child sleeping quietly in her own little room. See, the door was ajar and a ray of light from the lamp in Sallie's room was streaming across the kitchen floor. He must go in and extinguish the light before it awakened the sleeping child. Why had Martha left the lamp burning? Surely she must know it would disturb the child.
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