ticed that
putty much ev'ry one on 'em was lookin' our way, an' kind o' laughin',
an' Price in pertic'ler was grinnin' straight at me.

"'What's that,' he says, 'about Elder Maybee's powder?'

"'Oh, nuthin' much,' I says, 'jest a little supprise party the elder had
up to his house.'

"'Tell us about it,' says Price. 'Oh, yes, do tell us about it,' says
Mis' Price.

"'Wa'al,' I says, 'the' ain't much to it in the way of a story, but
seein' dinner must be most through,' I says, 'I'll tell ye all the' was
of it. The elder had a small farm 'bout two miles out of the village,' I
says, 'an' he was great on raisin' chickins an' turkeys. He was a slow,
putterin' kind of an ole foozle, but on the hull a putty decent citizen.
Wa'al,' I says, 'one year when the poultry was comin' along, a family o'
skunks moved onto the premises an' done so well that putty soon, as the
elder said, it seemed to him that it was comin' to be a ch'ice between
the chickin bus'nis an' the skunk bus'nis, an' though he said he'd heard
the' was money in it, if it was done on a big enough scale, he hadn't
ben edicated to it, he said, and didn't take to it _any_ ways. So,' I
says, 'he scratched 'round an' got a lot o' traps an' set 'em, an' the
very next mornin' he went out an' found he'd ketched an ole
he-one--president of the comp'ny. So he went to git his gun to shoot
the critter, an' found he hadn't got no powder. The boys had used it all
up on woodchucks, an' the' wa'n't nothin' fer it but to git some more
down to the village, an', as he had some more things to git, he hitched
up 'long in the forenoon an' drove down.' At this," said David, "one of
the ladies, wife to the judge, name o' Pomfort, spoke up an' says, 'Did
he leave that poor creature to suffer all that time? Couldn't it have
been put out of it's misery some other way?'

"'Wa'al marm,' I says, 'I never happened to know but one feller that set
out to kill one o' them things with a club, an' _he_ put in most o'
_his_ time fer a week or two up in the woods _hatin'_ himself,' I says.
'He didn't mingle in gen'ral soci'ty, an' in fact,' I says, 'he had the
hull road to himself, as ye might say, fer a putty consid'able spell.'"

John threw back his head and laughed. "Did she say any more?" he asked.

"No," said David with a chuckle. "All the men set up a great laugh, an'
she colored up in a kind of huff at fust, an' then she begun to laugh
too, an' then one o' the waiter fellers put somethin'