iled placidly, though it
was an ancient joke, the flavor of which had just fully penetrated the
rustic skull; and the villagers could not resist titillating the sense
of humor with it once or twice a month. Neither did Jabez mind being
called "Laigs," the local pronunciation of the word "legs;" in fact,
his good humor was too deep to be ruffled. His "cistern of wrathfulness
was so small, and the supply pipe so unready," that it was next to
impossible to "put him out," so the natives said.

He was a man of tolerable education; the only son of his parents, who
had endeavored to make great things of him, and might perhaps have
succeeded, if he hadn't always had so little time at his
disposal,--hadn't been "so drove," as he expressed it. He went to the
village school as regularly as he couldn't help, that is, as many days
as he couldn't contrive to stay away, until he was fourteen. From there
he was sent to the Academy, three miles distant; but his mother soon
found that he couldn't make the two trips a day and be "under cover by
candlelight;" so the plan of a classical education was abandoned, and he
was allowed to speed the home plough,--a profession which he pursued
with such moderation that his father, when starting him down a furrow,
used to hang his dinner-pail on his arm and, bidding him good-by, beg
him, with tears in his eyes, to be back before sun-down.

At the present moment Jabe was enjoying a cud of Old Virginia plug
tobacco, and taking in no more of the landscape than he could avoid,
when Maria, having wound up to the top of Marm Berry's hill, in spite of
herself walked directly out on one side of the road, and stopped short
to make room for the passage of an imposing procession, made up of one
straw phaeton, one baby, one strange boy, and one strange dog.

Jabe eyed the party with some placid interest, for he loved children,
but with no undue excitement. Shifting his huge quid, he inquired in his
usual leisurely manner, "Which way yer goin', bub,--t' the Swamp or t'
the Falls?"

Timothy thought neither sounded especially inviting, but, rapidly
choosing the lesser evil, replied, "To the Falls, sir."

"Thy way happens to be my way, 's Rewth said to Naomi; so 'f gittin'
over the road's your objeck, 'n' y' ain't pertickler 'baout the gait ye
travel, ye can git in 'n' ride a piece. We don't b'lieve in hurryin',
Mariar 'n' me. Slow 'n' easy goes fur in a day, 's our motto. Can ye git
your folks aboard withaout