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Ros, she's layin' into me because I didn't understand what " "Roscoe," broke in his wife, "I never was more mortified in all my born days. He " "Let me tell you all about it, Ros. I went to the door thinkin' 'twas a peddler, you know; had this old suit on, all sloshed up with soapsuds and water, and a wet rag in my hand; and there she stood, styled up like the Queen of Sheby. Well, sir!
"I'm so crippled I can't git her up, and she's dove clean to the lower hold, tryin' to scrape out a capful o' oats for that dratted Queen of Sheby." "Aunt Prue!" shouted Tunis, reverting to the title he had addressed her by in his boyhood. "It's never her?" A muffled voice stammered: "Get me out! Get me out!" "Heave hard, Tunis!
And what were you going to do with Queenie?" "I swan!" groaned Cap'n Ira again. "I don't wonder that you ask me that. It don't really seem reasonable that a sane man would get in such a jam, does it? Me and the Queen of Sheby sailin' down that sand pile. Tunis! We'll never be able to get up it in this world." "No. You must come along to our road, and get up that way," his young friend told him.
There was nothing brazen or forward about the proposal; Ponatah merely gave voice to her feelings in a simple, honest way that robbed her of no dignity. Bill laughed the proposal off. "I wouldn't marry the Queen of Sheby," said he. "Why?" "I ain't that kind of a bird, that's why." "What kind of a bird are you?" Ponatah eyed him with grave curiosity. "All men marry.
"I'd like ter see the way he'd fix up Sheby," said Mis' Doty. "He'd hev her dressed in silks an' satins an' diamond earrings soon as look." "Ye'll hev to go ter Washin'ton City sure enough, Tom," was the remark made oftenest. "When do ye 'low to start?" But Tom was not as intoxicated by the prospect as the rest of them. His demeanour was thoughtful and unexhilarated.
And as for looking out for the Queen of Sheby " "Now, Ira, Queenie ain't no trouble scurcely." "Huh! She's more trouble than all our money, that's sure. And she's eating her head off." "Now, don't say that," urged his wife in that soothing tone which often irritated Cap'n Ira more than it mollified him. He tapped the metal top of the huge knob of his cane and the spring cover flew open.
"Ef Tom 'd hev gone in with me an' helped me to work out that thar thing about Sheby, we mought hev made suthin' as would hev carried me through this," he said to himself more than once. He owed Tom a bitter grudge in a mild way. His bitterness was the bitterness of a little rat baulked of cheese.
"And I didn't get them oats, after all." "I'll 'tend to all that, Aunt Prue," said Tunis. "If it hadn't been for that dratted Queen of Sheby" Cap'n Ira glared malevolently at the rather surprised-looking countenance of the gray mare in her box "you wouldn't have got into that jam."
When ye've got 'em," with the agreeable grin again, "ye kin go to yer friend's far'well lecture easy in ye mind. Ye wouldn't be likely to go to many of 'em ef he knowed what I could tell him. He's powerful thick with Tom D'Willerby and Sheby. They think a heap of him. Tom must hev guessed what I've guessed, but he don't want no talk on accounts o' Sheby.
Tom himself was caught by the fancy and when his charge was referred to occasionally in a most friendly spirit as "Sheby thar," he made no protest against it. "It's a thunderation sight better than 'Flishyer," he said, "and if it comes easier to you fellows, I've no objection. Sheba ain't bad. There's a kind of swing to it, and you can't get it very far wrong.
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