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"You will be jokin'," said Bob, looking up with a laughing face; "I see'd you was a pleasant lady when I fust come to the winder." "Well, put it me out," said Mrs. Glegg, peremptorily. "But if I let you have it for ten shillin', mum, you'll be so good as not tell nobody. I should be a laughin'-stock; the trade 'ud hoot me, if they knowed it.
You know he's been as mad as hops over Sudleigh Cattle-Show, reg'lar as the year come round, because there's a raffle for a quilt, or suthin'. An' now he's come an' set up a sort of a stall over t'other side the room, an' folks thinks he's tryin' to git up a revival. I dunno when I've seen John so stirred. He says we hadn't ought to be made a laughin'-stock to Sudleigh, Passon or no Passon.
"He might ha' fooled you for years and years, and made a laughin'-stock of you wid everybody about the place and me wid ne'er a thought of any such a thing he might so, and bad luck to him.... 'Foostherin' about and consaitin' to be doin' a fair day's work, when he's the creep of a snail on him, and the stren'th of a rat. That's what I heard Tim Reilly sayin' and I goin' home on the Saturday night.
Ef you'd a-watched 'er better an' kept 'er more at home thar never would 'a' been the talk that's now goin' about an' makin' you an' her the laughin'-stock of the settlement. I told you all along that John Westerfelt never had marryin' in the back o' his head, an' only come to see her beca'se she was sech a fool about 'im."
And because he had too abiding a gentleness to say it, the insanity of her anger rose anew. "I'm the laughin'-stock o' the town," she went on bitterly. "There ain't a man or woman in it that don't say I've married a tramp."
"Yes, indeed!" and the old gentleman looked thoughtfully across the lawn as he wound up his tale of the unfortunate Groggins, "Yes, indeed If I keeps on talkin' away, I'll become a laughin'-stock, same as that locoed Vance! Thar's one matter that allers imbues me with a heap of respect for deef an' dumb folks; which they shorely do keep things to themse'fs a whole lot."
But no, he'd rather hang round the old place, an' sleep in the ell-chamber, an' do their chores for his board, an' keep on a-runnin' over here. An' when young Nat married, I says to myself, 'That'll make him speak. But it didn't an' you 're a laughin'-stock, 'Mandy Green, if ever there was one.
Wha wad set themsels up for a laughin'-stock to a' the country-side, making a wark about a ghost? Naebody believes in ghosts. It bid to be the wind in the trees, the last gentleman said, or some effec' o' the water wrastlin' among the rocks. He said it was a' quite easy explained; but he gave up the hoose. And when you cam, Cornel, we were awfu' anxious you should never hear.
"Did Jane Quimby say 'those two other old fools'?" inquired the Colonel, in a manner which indicated that he might see Mr. Quimby in regard to the slander. "I can't say as I remember just precisely her exact words," admitted Mrs. Flitcroft, "but that was the sense of 'em! You've made yourselves the laughin'-stock of the whole town!" "Oh, we have?"
"Bill is re-branded, 'Bill Connors, an' then he's done bound down to them books. After four years Bill gradyooates; he's got the limit an' the philanthrofists takes Bill's hobbles off an' throws him loose with the idee that Bill will go back to his tribe folks an' teach 'em to read. Bill comes back, shore, an' is at once the Osage laughin'-stock for wearin' pale-face clothes.
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