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The old man heard it all, and to his lonesome and homesick soul it was so sweet and comforting, that it melted his natural reserve, and made him anxious to unbosom himself to some one. So he answered Tom: "Only child of my only darter." "Father dead?" inquired Tom Dosser. "Better be," replied the deacon, bitterly. "He left her soon after they were married."
"Is the partikler night fixed?" asked Tim. "Yes; it's to be the last night o' this month." "Why not give notice?" asked Tim. "'Cause I won't peach on daddy," said Bob Frog stoutly. Little Tim received this with a "quite right, old dosser," and then proposed that the meeting should adjourn, as he was expected back at the Home by that time.
Costs money goin' to Europe an' payin' doctors I couldn't make it to hum in twenty year; so I come here." "Only child?" inquired Tom Dosser, while the boys crowded about the two Vermonters, and got up a low buzz of sympathetic conversation.
"I don't generally shoot till the other feller draws," explained Tom Dosser, while each man in the room wept with emotion as they realized they had lived to see Tom's skill displayed before their very eyes "I don't generally shoot till the other feller draws; but you'd better be spry. I usually make a little allowance for age, but "
The children could not be the guilty ones they were led by hand or carried in the dosser out into the fields; or, if it happened that they were left behind, their mother did not fail to hide the matches on the topmost shelf beyond their reach.
Saying which, the old man turned to go, while the court was paralyzed into silence. But Tom Dosser, a new arrival, and a famous shot, now stepped in front of the old man. "I ax yer parding," said Tom, in the blandest of tones, "but, uv course, yer didn't mean me when yer mentioned impudent scoundrels?" "Yes, I did I meant you, and ev'rybody like yer," replied the old man.
The deacon looked pleased, and extracted another picture, and remarked, as he handed it to Tom: "That's Pet's mother." Tom took it, looked at it, and screamed: "My wife!" He threw himself on the floor, and cried as only a big-hearted man can cry. The deacon gazed wildly about, and gasped: "What's his name? tell me quick!" "Tom Dosser!" answered a dozen or more. "That's him!
We'll put Sam up to botherin' yer, and yer can tackle him at sight. Then " "Excuse me, Boston," interrupted Tom Dosser, "but yer don't hit the mark. I'm from Vermont myself, an' deacons there don't fight for the fun of it, whatever they may do in the village you hail from." Then, turning to the old man, Tom asked: "What part uv the old State be ye from, deacon, an' what fetched ye out?"
Secure upon this point he digs up a nice lot and then fills up his dosser with two sorts of bulbous plants which secrete a glutinous substance but whose name and quality I have never found out. If he has in store some teeth of the sendok snake, or of any other equally venomous, he now returns to the village, otherwise he looks for one, kills it and possesses himself of its fangs.
Lieutenant Maimban at Quiangan, and Lieutenant Dosser at Mayoyao, have been and are most useful, though they do not hold official positions under the Mountain Province or receive any additional compensation for the special services which they render.
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