Providence a'n't dealed you a better
hand'n you think. Never desperandum, as the Congressmen say, fer while
the lamp holds out to burn you may beat the blackleg all to flinders
and sing and shout forever. Last night I went to bed thinkin' 'Umphreys
had the stakes all in his pocket. This mornin' I found he was in a far
way to be beat outen his boots ef you stood yer ground like a man and a
gineological descendant of Plymouth Rock!"

Andrew stopped his loom, and, looking at August, said: "Our friend Jonas
speaks somewhat periphrastically and euphuistically, and--he'll pardon
me--but he speaks a little ambiguously."

"My love, I gin it up, as the fish-hawk said to the bald eagle one day.
I kin rattle off odd sayings and big words picked up at Fourth-of-Julys
and barbecues and big meetins, but when you begin to fire off your
forty-pound bomb-shell book-words, I climb down as suddent as Davy
Crockett's coon. Maybe I do speak unbiguously, as you say, but I was
givin' you the biggest talkin' I had in the basket. And as fer my good
news, a feller don't like to eat up all his country sugar to wunst, I
'low. But I says to our young and promisin' friend of German extraction,
beloved, says I, hold onto that air limb a little longer and
you're saved."

"But, Jonas," said August, spinning Andrew's winding-blade round and
speaking slowly and bitterly, "a man don't like to be trifled with, if
he is a Dutchman!"

"But sposin' a man hain't been trifled with, Dutchman or no
Dutchman? Sposin' it's all a optical delusion of the yeers?
There's a word fer _you_, Andrew, that a'n't nuther unbiguous
nor peri-what-you-may-call-it."

"But," said August, "Betsey Malcolm--"

"_Betsey Malcolm!_" said Jonas. "Betsey Malcolm to thunder!" and then he
whistled. "Set a dog to mind a basket of meat when his chops is
a-waterin' fer it! Set a kingfisher to take keer of a fish-pond! Set a
cat to raisin' your orphan chickens on the bottle! Set a spider to nuss
a fly sick with dyspepsy from eatin' too much molasses! I'd ruther trust
a hen-hawk with a flock of patridges than to trust Betsey Malcolm with
your affairs. I ha'n't walked behind you from meetin' and seed her head
a bobbin' like a bluebird's and her eyes a blazin an' all that, fer
nothin'. Like as not, Betsey Malcolm's more nor half your trouble in
that quarter."

"But she said--"

"It don't matter three quarters of a rotten rye-straw what she said, my
inexper'enced friend. She don't keer