as
glad it was out of the way. One day, I know, I was coming by with
mother, and she said it made her feel bad to see the little strips of
leather by the fore door, where Mis' Ashby had nailed up a rosebush
once. There! there ain't an Ashby alive now of the old stock, except
young John. Joe's son went off to sea, and I believe he was lost
somewhere in the China seas, or else he died of a fever; I seem to
forget. He was called a smart boy, but he never could seem to settle
down to anything. Sometimes I wonder folks is as good as they be, when I
consider what comes to 'em from their folks before 'em, and how they're
misshaped by nature. Them Ashbys never was like other folks, and yet
some good streak or other there was in every one of 'em. You can't
expect much from such hindered creator's,--it's just like beratin' a
black and white cat for being a poor mouser. It ain't her fault that the
mice see her quicker than they can a gray one. If you get one of them
masterful dispositions put with a good strong will towards the right,
that's what makes the best of men; but all them Ashbys cared about was
to grasp and get, and be cap'ns. They liked to see other folks put down,
just as if it was going to set them up. And they didn't know nothing.
They make me think of some o' them old marauders that used to hive up
into their castles, in old times, and then go out a-over-setting and
plundering. And I tell you that same sperit was in 'em. They was born a
couple o' hundred years too late. Kind of left-over folks, as it were."
And Miss Debby indulged in a quiet chuckle as she bent over her work.
"John he got captured by his wife,--she carried too many guns for him. I
believe he died very poor and her own son wouldn't support her, so she
died over in Freeport poor-house. And Joe got along better; his wife was
clever but rather slack, and it took her a good while to see through
things. She married again pretty quick after he died. She had as much as
seven or eight thousand dollars, and she was taken just as she stood by
a roving preacher that was holding meetings here in the winter time. He
sold out her place here, and they went up country somewheres that he
come from. Her boy was lost before that, so there was nothing to hinder
her. There, don't you think I'm always a-fault-finding! When I get hold
of the real thing in folks, I stick to 'em,--but there's an awful sight
of poor material walking about that ain't worth the ground it steps on