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Meantime Leander's family wuz increasin' and growin'. Little Sarey had the hoopin' cough dreadful one winter, but the cyclopeedy didn't help out at all, 'cause all it said wuz: "Hoopin' Cough See Whoopin' Cough" and uv course there warn't no Whoopin' Cough to see, bein' as how the W hadn't come yet!
Finally he had to take to his bed, he was so old 'nd feeble, but he made 'em move the bed up ag'inst the winder so he could watch for that last volyume of the cyclopeedy. The end come one balmy day in the spring uv '87. His life wuz a-ebbin' powerful fast; the minister wuz there, 'nd me, 'nd Dock Wilson, 'nd Jedge Baker, 'nd most uv the fam'ly.
His wife, Hattie, passed away with the yaller janders the winter W come, and all that seemed to reconcile Leander to survivin' her wuz the prospect uv seein' the last volyume of that cyclopeedy. Lemuel Higgins, the book-agent, had gone to his everlastin' punishment; but his son, Hiram, had succeeded to his father's business 'nd continued to visit the folks his old man had roped in.
Leander allowed that the Rhode Island greenin' wuz the best, but Hattie and the Turner boy stuck up f'r the Roxbury russet, until at last a happy idee struck Leander, and sez he: "We'll leave it to the cyclopeedy, b'gosh! Whichever one the cyclopeedy sez is the best will settle it." "But you can't find out nothin' 'bout Roxbury russets nor Rhode Island greenin's in our cyclopeedy," sez Hattie.
Leander went to the seckertary 'nd took down the cyclopeedy 'nd hunted all through it f'r Apples, but all he could find wuz "Apple See Pomology." "How in thunder kin I see Pomology," sez Leander, "when there ain't no Pomology to see? Gol durn a cyclopeedy, anyhow!" And he put the volyume back onto the shelf 'nd never sot eyes into it ag'in. That's the way the thing run f'r years 'nd years.
"Hattie," sez he, "I guess I'll have to lay in a few books f'r readin' in the winter time, 'nd I've half a notion to subscribe f'r a cyclopeedy. Mr. Higgins here says they're invalerable in a family, and that we orter have 'em, bein' as how we're likely to have the fam'ly bime by."
You see, he 'd bought a cyclopeedy the winter we wuz all marr'ed an' had been readin' in it uv a great foreign warrior named Cyrus that lived a long spell ago. "Land uv Goshen, Bill!" sez I, "you don't reckon the baby 'll ever be a warrior?" "Well, I don't know about that," sez Bill.
But what's the use uv harrowin' up one's feelin's talkin' 'nd thinkin' about these things? Leander got so after a while that the cyclopeedy didn't worry him at all: he grew to look at it ez one uv the crosses that human critters has to bear without complainin' through this vale uv tears.
A cyclopeedy isn't printed all at oncet, because that would make it cost too much; consekently the man that gets it up has it strung along fur apart, so as to hit folks oncet every year or two, and gin'rally about harvest time. So Leander kind uv liked the idee, and he signed the printed paper 'nd made his affidavit to it afore Jedge Warner.
"Yes," sez Marthy; "we made it up atween us long ago that you should have the namin' uv our baby like we had the namin' uv yourn." Then, kind uv hectorin' like for I was always a powerful tease I sez: "How would Cleopatry do for a name? or Venis? I have been readin' the cyclopeedy myself, I 'd have you know!"
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