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What with sweepin' and dustin' and scrubbin' and washin' and ironin' and bringin' up children and feedin' pigs and cows and chickens and churnin' and waitin' on your father, it's no wonder I'm a helpless cripple with the misery in my back." "Dried peaches again," Matilda observed, scornfully, as Rosemary put a small saucer of fruit before her. "Who told you to get dried peaches?"
And Cynthia's son told the story of Joe and Hattie and Mrs. Dustin and Peter as Green Valley had told it to him. And when it was told the two men sat still and listened to the little wind mourning somewhere outside. "Yes that's it. They were looking for their children. If mine hadn't a-died that's maybe what I'd be doing now. Oh, God, parson, I'm in wrong again.
But life, that wisely and for posterity's sake mates not the like but the unlike, brought Jerry Dustin on the scene, good, practical, stay-at-home Jerry Dustin. And the girl who used to sit with Tony on the station bench and watch the trains pull out into the wide big world left her childhood friend sitting alone and went to Jerry, answered his smile and call.
Dustin and fly for your lives," he cried. Mrs. Dustin had an infant, but a few days old, and was confined to her bed. Mrs. Neff was her nurse. The husband made an attempt to remove his wife; but it was too late. The Indians, like ravenous wolves, were rushing on the house. Mrs. Dustin turned to her husband and said: "Go, Thomas, you cannot save me, go and save the children."
Every child there knew the lovely, blue-eyed little mother of Peter Dustin. The only one who did not know her was the proprietor standing in stupid wonder behind his counter. But she pretended not to see his astonishment as she made her laughing explanations. "We got lonesome, Joe and I. You know these first autumn nights do chill us older folks a bit and make us sad.
It needed only a few brilliant operations, madly reckless in appearance but successful, to give Ault the newspaper sobriquet of the Young Napoleon. "Papa, what does he mean?" asked the eldest boy. "Jim Dustin says the papers call you Napoleon." "It means, my boy," said Ault, with a grim smile, that I am devoted to your mother, St. Helena."
"Why, Mollie, girl, you're a fairy on your feet," praised Mrs. Dustin and the happy face at her breast flushed with pleasure and gratitude at the words. Peter was not the least bit surprised at his mother's antics. He knew that she was a glorious mother and full of surprises. The other youngsters however were not so sure. So Peter suggested to the proprietor that he start the graphophone.
So now he answered with his hand on little Jim's shoulder, "Work, my boy, and study, work and study." "And is that all?" questioned Jim disappointedly. "Sure and that's like my mother tellin' me dustin' and dishwashin' was my two first steps." "Well, they were your first steps, Jim, because they were the duties that lay nearest you. But it will take more than work and study, after all."
The proprietor nodded and soon they were all dancing, Mrs. Dustin taking a new partner every few minutes. "And children," she suddenly remembered, "Joe can jig why, he used to jig beautifully." So Joe took his turn in amusing the children and while he did it Mrs. Dustin examined some machines lined up along the wall.
So, if you please, we will drop the subject. I then picked up a book and held it before me to signify that the parley was at an end. Elizabeth snorted. The term is vulgar, I know, but no other expression is adequate. 'Oo was listenin', I'd like to know? she asked. 'I sed overheerd. The door was well on the jar and I was dustin' the 'all when I 'ears Miss Marryun a-moanin' and a-sobbin' like.
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