"Jist so, daddy; jist so; I'll witness that. But it 'minds me mightily
of the way mammy _give_ old Trailler the side of bacon last week. She
a-sweepin' up the h'a'th; the meat on the table; old Trailler jumps up,
gethers the bacon, and darts! Mammy arter him with the broom-stick as
fur as the door, but seein' the dog has got the start, she shakes the
stick at him, and hollers, 'You sassy, aigsukkin', roguish, gnatty,
flop-eared varmint! take it along! take it along! I only wish 'twas full
of a'snic, and ox-vomit, and blue vitrul, so as 'twould cut your interls
into chitlins!' That's about the way you give Bunch to Simon."
"Oh, shuh, Ben," remarked Simon, "I wouldn't run on that way. Daddy
couldn't help it; it was _predestinated_: 'Whom he hath, he will,' you
know," and the rascal pulled down the under lid of his left eye at his
brother. Then addressing his father, he asked, "War'n't it, daddy?"
"To be sure--to be sure--all fixed aforehand," was old Mr. Suggs' reply.
"Didn't I tell you so, Ben?" said Simon. "_I_ knowed it was all fixed
aforehand," and he laughed until he was purple in the face.
"What's in ye? What are ye laughin' about?" asked the old man wrothily.
"Oh, it's so funny that it could all 'a' been _fixed aforehand_!" said
Simon, and laughed louder than before. The obtusity of the Reverend Mr.
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