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She had loyal feelings to express this morning, but long experience as the housekeeper of priests had made Ann wary of approaching a subject too abruptly. "Mrs. Thompson was here, yer Reverence." "Yes? What was it this time?" "Sure, 'twas about her young b'y Jack, the good-fer-nothin'. He's drinkin' ag'in." "And she wants me to " "Give him the pledge."
A few minutes afterward she drove the cows up into the lot and meekly took her scolding from Mrs. Means for being gone sech an awful long time, like a lazy, good-fer-nothin piece of goods that she was. Ralph opened the thumb-paper note, written on & page torn from an old copy-book, in Bud's "hand-write" and running: "Mr. Heartsook "deer Sur: "I Put in my best licks, taint no use.
"I used to git six dollars a month, when I was your age, an' rise at four o'clock in the mornin' an' work till bedtime. You boys now-days are a lazy good-fer-nothin' lot. What's yer name?" "Sidney Trove." "Don't want ye." "Well, mister," said the boy, who was much in need of money, "I'll saw your wood for anything you've a mind to give me." "I'll give ye fifty cents a day," said the old man.
I'll have th' law on ye fer this, that's what I will! Knocked down my corn; did ye? Well, ye kin find th' road the best way ye like now. I'll never tell ye. And I want t' see how much damage ye done. You wait till I git a lantern. Tromped through my corn! That's jest like you good-fer-nothin' school snips! I'll fix ye fer this all right, or my name ain't Jed Appleby!"
And an American may be a good-fer-nothin', ornery little pertater-ball, wuthless alike to man and beast; he mayn't be good fer nothin', nuther fer work nur study; he may git drunk and git turned outen school and do any pertikeler number of disgraceful and oncreditable things, he may be a reg'ler milksop and nincompoop, a fool and a blackguard and a coward all rolled up into one piece of brown paper, ef he wants to.
If folks all had to work as hard as I do, they wouldn't have no money fer no such things, so they wouldn't. It 'ud stan' 'em in hand to be savin'." "Why don't you drive off some yer good-fer-nothin' boys and make 'em do somethin', Mis' Stillman?" bantered the neighbor. "Well, they've all been a-workin'," relented the mother.
You see I wanted to git out of this Flat Crick way. We're a low-lived set here in Flat Crick. And I says to myself, I'll try to be somethin' more nor Pete Jones, and dad, and these other triflin', good-fer-nothin' ones 'bout here. And when you come I says, There's one as'll help me.
He had been petted, teased, humored, exhibited, coddled, fooled with everything save properly trained and broken. So he grew up a trace shirker and a halter-puller, with disposition, temperament, and general behavior as uneven as his coloring. "The most good-fer-nothin' animal I ever wasted grain on!" declared Uncle Enoch.
You can do the foolest things, M'lissy, without the court seein' a crack in your brain; but if you happen to get mad an' put a bullet through some good-fer-nothin' loafer, then immedjitly yer insane. That's the law, M'lissy." Melissa received this exposition of her country's code with wondering, luminous eyes. It had a wild, unreasonable sound which was a sufficient guarantee of its correctness.
"The thing fer you to do is to set right down an' wait fer that pesky good-fer-nothin' Copernicus Droop!" she remarked, and suiting action to speech she picked her way to a convenient mile-stone and seated herself.
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