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Magnus looked very solemn, and said that he had seen none of the family since we had finished our work for Gowdy a year ago. "What said the old man, Yake?" he asked anxiously. "He said he was going to will his property away from her!" I replied, laughing heartily at the idea: but Magnus did not laugh. "He said that she ain't no longer a member of his family, Magnus. Don't that beat you!"
But Sister Arvilly Lanfear, who happened to be a-standin' in the door as they went off, she said she heard 'em out as fer as the gate a-congratilatin' themselves and the Methodist Meetin' House and the nation on the decesion, for, sez they, "Them angels hain't strong enough to set, and I've known it all the time." And Sister Sylvester Gowdy sez to me, a-rubbin' herachin' armpits
"Well," said she, "for a smart, nice-lookin' young man, like you, it's your own fault " And then there was a tap on the door. Rowena started, turned toward the door, made as if to get up to open it, and then sat down again, her face first flushed and then pale. Her mother opened the door, and there stood Buckner Gowdy. He came in, with his easy politeness and sat down among us like an old friend.
Gowdy raged. On the heels of this came a bill from Meyer, Van Horn, and Co. for tin-ware. It had been purchased but a week before, yet the bill bore these words, stamped in red ink and set askew with a haste that seemed to denote a sudden gust of spite: "Please remit." "Henrietta!" called the Doctor to his wife; "how's this? You know I never trade at any of those abominable department stores!
There wuz quite dubersome looks all round the room when she handed in the money and went right out, for she had a errent to the store. And Sister Gowdy spoke up and said she didn't exactly like to use money got in that way.
But the news had excited 'em, and exhilerated 'em so, that they had dropped everything, and hastened right down to tell us, and then they wuz a-goin' back agin immegietly. I, myself, took the news coolly, or as cool as I could, with my temperature up to five or five and a half, owin' to the hard work and the heat. Miss Gowdy also took it pretty calm.
One of my grandsons, Frank McConkey, has just read over this chapter, and remarks, "He was a dead game sport!" But he had also read what Captain Gowdy had interlined, or rather written on the margin to go in after the description of the property conveyed: "Also one blue-blooded black-and-tan terrier name 'Nicodemus. The tail goes with the hide, Jacob!"
I marveled that the Gowdy carriage still was astern of me after all this time; and speculated as to whether there was not some other road between Dyersville and Independence, by which they had passed me; but a few miles east of Independence they came up behind me as I lay bogged down in a slew, and drove by on the green tough sod by the roadside.
One day I told Magnus Thorkelson about Mrs. Mobley's coming and taking Gowdy away from the little cabin of the Fewkes family. "She do dat," said he, "a dozen times ven Ay bane dar. She alvays bane chasing Buck Gowdy." "Well," I said, "who be you chasing, coming over here a dozen times when I didn't know it? That's why you bought that mustang pony, eh?"
The Gowdy outfit did not return until after I had about cured the lameness of my newly-acquired cows and set out on my way over the Old Ridge Road for the West. Some southern slopes were so blue with them that you could hardly tell the distant hill from the sky, except for the greening of the peeping grass. The possblummies were still blowing, but only the later ones.
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