ore dinner, but what I
started out fer 's this: 'Lish fin'ly settled over to Whitcom."

"Did he ever git married?" interrupted Mrs. Cullom.

"Oh, yes," replied Mrs. Bixbee, "he got married when he was past forty.
It's curious," she remarked, in passing, "but it don't seem as if the'
was ever yit a man so mean but he c'd find some woman was fool enough to
marry him, an' she was a putty decent sort of a woman too, f'm all
accounts, an' good lookin'. Wa'al, she stood him six or seven year, an'
then she run off."

"With another man?" queried the widow in an awed voice. Aunt Polly
nodded assent with compressed lips.

"Yes'm," she went on, "she left him an' went out West somewhere, an'
that was the last of _her_; an' when her two boys got old enough to look
after themselves a little, they quit him too, an' they wa'n't no way
growed up neither. Wa'al, the long an' the short on't was that 'Lish got
goin' down hill ev'ry way, health an' all, till he hadn't nothin' left
but his disposition, an' fairly got onter the town. The' wa'n't nothin'
for it but to send him to the county house, onless somebody 'd s'port
him. Wa'al, the committee knew Dave was his brother, an' one on 'em come
to see him to see if he'd come forwud an' help out, an' he seen Dave
right here in this room, an' Dave made me stay an' hear the hull thing.
Man's name was Smith, I remember, a peaked little man with long chin
whiskers that he kep' clawin' at with his fingers. Dave let him tell
his story, an' he didn't say nothin' fer a minute or two, an' then he
says, 'What made ye come to me?' he says. 'Did he send ye?'

"'Wa'al,' says Smith, 'when it was clear that he couldn't do nuthin', we
ast him if the' wa'n't nobody could put up fer him, an' he said you was
his brother, an' well off, an' hadn't ought to let him go t' the
poorhouse.'

"'He said that, did he?' says Dave.

"'Amountin' to that,' says Smith.

"'Wa'al,' says Dave, 'it's a good many years sence I see 'Lish, an'
mebbe you know him better 'n I do. You known him some time, eh?'

"'Quite a number o' years,' says Smith.

"'What sort of a feller was he,' says Dave, 'when he was somebody? Putty
good feller? good citizen? good neighber? lib'ral? kind to his fam'ly?
ev'rybody like him? gen'ally pop'lar, an' all that?'

"'Wa'al,' says Smith, wigglin' in his chair an' pullin' out his whiskers
three four hairs to a time, 'I guess he come some short of all that.'

"'E'umph!' says Dave, 'I guess he did