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"'Pears like to me ez the only reason Thad kin be so late a-gittin' back air jes' 'kase it air a toler'ble aggervatin' job a-fotchin' of dad home," she said, striving to reassure herself. "That air a true word 'bout'n dad, ennyhow," Ben assented bitterly. His old grandfather suddenly lifted up his voice.
Between his readin' uv his paper 'nd his eatin' plug terbacker he kep' toler'ble busy till come bedtime. The rest on us kep' as quiet as we could, for we knew it wuz an honor to ride in the same sleepin'-car with the richest man in Marion County 'nd a director uv the Han'bul 'nd St. Jo to boot. Along 'bout eight o'clock the colonel reckoned he 'd tumble into bed.
That's a toler'ble high-falutin figgur o' speech for a nigger, but it's thess the way he expresses it. You know he's been seen holdin' conversation with dumb brutes, more 'n once-t in broad daylight.
"Law, law," he mused; "'the horrible pit an' the miry clay. What a sufferin' pity it is we pore sinners cayn't dance a little now and ag'in 'thout havin' to walk right up and pay the fiddler! Tom-Jeff, there, now, he's a-thinkin' the price is toler'ble high; and I don't know but it is I don't know but what it is."
I noticed, ez he set there that day, thet he begin to look toler'ble solemn, for a festival, but it never crossed my mind what he was a-projeckin' to do. Ef I had 'a' suspicioned it, I'm afeered I would've opposed it, I'd 'a' been so skeert he wouldn't come out all right; an' ez I said, I didn't see, for the life o' me, how he was goin' to work it.
He lifted the child by them, laughing in undisguised pleasure to feel the substantial strain upon the garment. "Toler'ble survigrus," he declared, with his high chirp. His daughter suddenly sprang up with a pallid face and a pointing hand. "The winder!" she huskily cried "suthin's at the winder!"
Well, yas, sir; 't is toler'ble expensive, lookin' at it one way, but lookin' at it another, it don't cost no mo' 'n what it would to edjercate three child'en, which many poor families have to do an' more which in our united mind Sonny's worth 'em all. Yas, sir; 't is confusin' to him in some ways, goin' to all three schools at once-t.
He sat silent, blinking in the sunshine that fell through the gourd-vines which clambered about the porch where Si had placed his chair. "'Twarn't much of a sizable sperit," Si declared; he seemed courageous enough now to measure the ghost like a tailor. "It warn't more'n four feet high, ez nigh ez dad could jedge. Toler'ble small fur a harnt!" Still the old man made no reply.
Laban says the old commodore meanin' the pa, I suppose is a holy terror and sets more store by his daughter than he does by his hopes of salvation, enough sight. Good reason, too, I presume likely; he's toler'ble sure of the daughter. Well, anyhow, the letters are gone and Labe says he's willin' to bet that Cousin Percy'll be GOIN' out of the window and out of Scarford when papa gets after him.
"I wonder what they charge fur iron over yander at the settlemint, Em'ry?" observed Sim Roxby presently. "Dun'no', sir," responded Emory, glumly, his sullen black eyes full of smouldering fire "hevin' no call ter know, ez I ain't no blacksmith." "I war jes' wonderin' ef tenpenny nails didn't cost toler'ble high ez reg'lar feed," observed Roxby, gravely.
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