down in front of
me an' I went eatin' agin. But putty soon Price, he says, 'Come,' he
says, 'Harum, ain't you goin' on? How about that powder?'

"'Wa'al,' I says, 'mebbe we had ought to put that critter out of his
misery. The elder went down an' bought a pound o' powder an' had it done
up in a brown paper bundle, an' put it with his other stuff in the
bottom of his dem'crat wagin; but it come on to rain some while he was
ridin' back, an' the stuff got more or less wet, an' so when he got home
he spread it out in a dishpan an' put it under the kitchen stove to dry,
an' thinkin' that it wa'n't dryin' fast enough, I s'pose, made out to
assist Nature, as the sayin' is, by stirrin' on't up with the kitchin
poker. Wa'al,' I says, 'I don't jest know how it happened, an' the elder
cert'inly didn't, fer after they'd got him untangled f'm under what was
left of the woodshed an' the kitchin stove, an' tied him up in cotton
battin', an' set his leg, an' put out the house, an' a few things like
that, bom-by he come round a little, an' the fust thing he says was,
"Wa'al, wa'al, wa'al!" "What is it, pa?" says Mis' Maybee, bendin' down
over him. "That peowder," he says, in almost no voice, "that peowder! I
was jest stirrin' on't a little, an' it went _o-f-f_, it went _o-f-f_,"
he says, "_seemin'ly--in--a--minute_!" an' that,' I says to Mis' Price,
'was what that egg done.'

"'We'll have to forgive you that egg,' she says, laughin' like
ev'rything, 'for Elder Maybee's sake'; an' in fact," said David, "they
all laughed except one feller. He was an Englishman--I fergit his name.
When I got through he looked kind o' puzzled an' says" (Mr. Harum
imitated his style as well as he could), "'But ra'ally, Mr. Harum, you
kneow that's the way powdah always geoes off, don't you kneow,' an'
then," said David, "they laughed harder 'n ever, an' the Englishman got
redder 'n a beet."

"What did you say?" asked John.

"Nuthin'," said David. "They was all laughin' so't I couldn't git in a
word, an' then the waiter brought me another plateful of somethin'. Scat
my ----!" he exclaimed, "I thought that dinner 'd go on till kingdom
come. An' wine! Wa'al! I begun to feel somethin' like the old feller did
that swallered a full tumbler of white whisky, thinkin' it was water.
The old feller was temp'rence, an' the boys put up a job on him one hot
day at gen'ral trainin'. Somebody ast him afterwuds how it made him
feel, an' he said he felt as if he was sittin