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"Or mebbe he hain't got time to load. Like enough he's captured the sheriff, an' is a-takin him off. We've got to be keerful how we shoot." The men gained steadily on the wagon, and finally Bill Braymer felt sure enough to shout: "Halt, or we'll fire!" The only response was a sudden flash at the rear of the wagon; at the same instant the challenger's horse fell dead.
Better make it 'fore them fast-shootin' hombres back theah come a-takin' you." Though they did not move in the same reckless fashion as their guide, somehow they got across the pond and emerged dripping on the other side. The determination which had made Croxton try the escape, seemed to fade as they rode on. He continued to hold to the horn, but he slumped further over in a bundle of misery.
The old couple had drawn back at the sight of the gentle vagabond, and Angy clutched at her husband's arm, her heart contracting at the thought that he, too, had become a pauper. "I'm a-takin' my wife ter jine the old ladies over thar ter the Hum," Abe answered, and would have passed on, shrinking from the sight of himself as reflected in poor Ishmael.
"Is it the years are tellin', puttin' the frost in me veins and chillin' the blood? A likely lad, an' is it for me to misjudge because his is a-takin' way with the ladies? Just because the swate creatures smile on the lad an' flutter warm at the sight iv him? Bright eyes and brave men! 'Tis the way they have iv lovin' valor.
"Wall," sez I, "I don't know but I had jest as soon be found a-makin' riz biscuit, a-takin' care of my own household, as the Lord hes commanded me to, as to be found a-sailin' round in a book muslin Mother Hubbard." "It hain't a Mother Hubbard!" sez she. "Wall," sez I, "I said it for oritory. But it is puckered up some like them, and you know it." Hers wuz made with a yoke.
Abraham had risen with creaks of his rheumatic joints, and was now walking up and down the room, his feet lifted slowly and painfully with every step, yet still his blue eyes flashing with the fire of indignant protest. "Me a-bunkin' comfortable in the Old Men's, an' yew a-takin' keer o' them Halsey young 'uns fer ten cents a week! I wouldn't take keer o' 'em fer ten cents a short breath.
"What right you got a-takin' in a good-fer-nuthin' old man? Mebbe he'd rob yew er kill yew! When men git ter rampagin', yew can't tell what they might dew." Sarah Jane nodded her head knowingly, as if to exclaim: "I told yer so!" But Miss Abigail hurriedly explained that it was a man and wife that they wanted. She blushed as she added that of course they would not take a man without his wife.
But so it is; generations and generations are born, live, and die, and the old bells, a-takin' life easy, jest swing on, and ring out jest as sweet and calm and kinder careless at our death as at our birth. The bells sounded dretful melancholy and heart achin' to me; that day they seemed to be soundin' a requiem clear from California to Jonesville for the good Man who had passed away.
"I beg your parding, ma'am," said the colonel, raising his hat politely with one hand, while he reopened the coach-door with the other, "but we're a-takin' up a collection fur some very deservin' object. We wuz a-goin' to make the gentlemen fork over the hull amount, but ez they hain't got enough, we'll hev to bother you." The old lady trembled, and felt for her pocketbook, and raised her vail.
'It was as if the heavens was falling atop of us; but we had no fear then, we were all a-takin' of it as easy as if we was ashore, but it was afterwards we thought of it.
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