"I tell ye, I've travelled to the four quarters of the 'arth, ma," said
he; "and set eyes on the tarnalest critters under God's canopy, but I
never see anybody yit that 'ud fit into that 'ere. Besides," he added,
knowingly, in a milder tone; "I reckin that 'ere stockin's meant for
somebody nearer hum, and a pretty straight-legged fellow, too."
I was enabled to judge something still further of the speculations waking
in the Wallencamp brain, when, having to keep Henry G. after school, one
night, as a means of discipline, he bawled out:--
"Ye don't keep Simmy B. after school no more! And why not?" continued the
aggrieved infant, at the same time framing for himself an answer of
malicious significance: "Oh, 'cause he's Lute Cradlebow's brother!"
Social converse was at its high tide, now, in Wallencamp among the birds
in the trees and the fowls in the door-yards, and quite as naturally and
harmlessly so, for the most part, I think, among the beings of a superior
order. They had little other recreation.
The bonfire had marked the close of the gay epoch in Wallencamp. It was
too warm now for the livelier recreations of the winter. Religious
interest, especially, was at a low ebb.
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