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"There'd been a rain; then she'd froze up ag'in," pursued Walky. "It put a crust on the snow, but I had no idee it had made the ice rotten. And with Mr. Mercury creepin' down to thirty below jefers-pelters! I'd no idee Mink Creek had open air-holes in it. I ain't never understood it to this day. "Wal, sir! ye know where Mink Creek crosses the road to Kittridge's, Jason?" Mr. Day nodded.
Lem yelled loud enough to be heard a block: "Not that barrel, Marm! For the good Land o' Goshen! don't bust in that barrel." "Why not?" demanded his breathless wife, the axe poised for the stroke. "Cause it's merlasses! If ye bust thet in, ye will hev a mess here, an' no mistake." "Jefers-pelters!" chuckled Walky Dexter, telling of it afterward, "I come away then an' left 'em erlone.
"This is my uncle's cash-box, I am very sure," interposed Ruth, with some anger. "It was not swept away the day of the flood. You were there in his little office at the very moment the waters struck the mill, and we saw you running from the place as though you were scared." "Jefers-pelters!" croaked Jasper. "It was enough to scare anybody!" "That may be.
Dexter?" asked Mrs. Day puzzled. "Why, I been gittin' of it all over taown," groaned the expressman. "Sarves me right, I s'pose. I see the reedic'lous side o' most things that happen ter other folks an' they gotter right ter laff at me." "Why, what's happened ye?" asked Aunt 'Mira. "Jefers-pelters!" ejaculated Walky. "Ain't Janice tol' ye?" "Nothin' about you," Mrs. Day assured him.
"I've used the same myself. And it serves all right if one is utterly selfish. I thought that out after Janice, here, opened my eyes." "You show me how my takin' a drink 'casionally hurts anybody or anything else, an', jefers-pelters! I'll stop it mighty quick!" exclaimed the expressman, with some heat.
"Jefers-pelters! I 'low if I had a boy o' m' own mebbe I'd be a lettle keerful how I used either licker, or terbaccer. But I hain't. I got only one child, an' she's a female. I reckon I ain't gotter worry about little Matildy bein' inflooenced either by her daddy's chawin', or his takin' a snifter of licker on a cold day I snum!" "Unanswerable logic, Walky," said Nelson, with some scorn.
I thought ye said once that no man in Polktown could best ye if ye put yer mind to it?" Cross Moore chewed his straw reflectively. "I don't consider I have been beaten by a man," he said. "No? Jefers-pelters! what d'ye call it?" blustered Walky. "I reckon I've been beaten by a girl and an idea," said Mr. Cross Moore.
"I know the place, Walky," he agreed. "That's where it happened," said Walky Dexter, nodding his head many times. "I was crossin' the stream, thinkin' nothin' could happen, and 'twas jest at sunup. I'd come six mile, and was jest ha'f way to the farm. I kerried that piller-case over my shoulder, and slung from the other shoulder was a gun, and I had a hatchet in my belt. "Jefers-pelters!
"Suppose Sim Howell were your boy? How would you feel to know that, at his age, he had been intoxicated?" "Jefers-pelters!" grunted Walky. "I reckon I wouldn't git pigeon-breasted with pride over it nossir!" "Then don't make fun," admonished the girl, severely. "It is an awful, awful thing that the boys of Polktown can even get hold of such stuff to make them so ill."
Then he scratched his bare, bald crown, sighed, and muttered quite loud enough for Janice to hear: "Jefers-pelters! I reckon old Josephus hez come out for prohibition, an' no mistake!" Fortunately for Walky Dexter, the freight that he had backed into the lake was not perishable. It could not be greatly injured by water.
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