picurean soul, ye turned up your nose on the ole woman, and went back
on the pies, and on her! She that dandled ye when ye woz a baby,--a
little baby! Mebbee ye went back on her, and shook her, and played off
on her, and gave her away--dead away! And now, mebbee, young man--I
wouldn't hurt ye for the world, but mebbee, afore ye leave this yar
table, YE'LL EAT THAT PIE!"

The stranger rose to his feet, but the muzzle of a dragoon revolver in
the unsteady hands of Whisky Dick, caused him to sit down again. He ate
the pie, and lost his case likewise, before a Rough-and-Ready jury.

Indeed, far from exhibiting the cynical doubts and distrusts of age,
Daddy Downey received always with childlike delight the progress of
modern improvement and energy. "In my day, long back in the twenties,
it took us nigh a week--a week, boys--to get up a barn, and all the
young ones--I was one then--for miles 'round at the raisin'; and yer's
you boys--rascals ye are, too--runs up this yer shanty for Mammy and me
'twixt sun-up and dark! Eh, eh, you're teachin' the old folks new
tricks, are ye? Ah, get along, you!" and in playful simulation of
anger he would shake his white hair and his hickory staff at the
"rascals." The only indication of the conservative tendencies of age
was visible in his continual protest against the extravagance of the
boys. "Why," he would say, "a family, a hull family,--leavin' alone me
and the old woman,--might be supported on what you young rascals throw
away in a single spree. Ah, you young dogs, didn't I hear about your
scattering half-dollars on the stage the other night when that
Eyetalian Papist was singin'? And that money goes out of Ameriky--ivry
cent!"

There was little doubt that the old couple were saving, if not
avaricious. But when it was known, through the indiscreet volubility
of Mammy Downey, that Daddy Downey sent the bulk of their savings,
gratuities, and gifts to a dissipated and prodigal son in the
East,--whose photograph the old man always carried with him,--it rather
elevated him in their regard. "When ye write to that gay and festive
son o' yourn, Daddy," said Joe Robinson, "send him this yer specimen.
Give him my compliments, and tell him, ef he kin spend money faster
than I can, I call him! Tell him, ef he wants a first-class jamboree,
to kem out here, and me and the boys will show him what a square drunk
is!" In vain would the old man continue to protest against the spirit
of