, 'I'd hate to have to
choose betwixt a woman and this here peach and honey.' And Hamilton,
he was tappin' his boot with his ridin'-whip and walkin' the floor,
and Uncle Billy jest kept on talkin' and stirrin'. 'You're young and
strong,' says he, 'and I'm old and feeble. It's half-past ten in the
mornin' with you, and it's half-past eleven at night with me. You're
on the big road, and jest before you there's a gyirl with yeller hair
and brown eyes, and you'll ketch up with her maybe before night, and
here I am in my old hickory chair and nothin' before me but my old
lame foot and my peach and honey. But,' says he, 'son, take an old
man's advice: don't be in too big a hurry to ketch up with that
yeller-haired gyirl.' Says he, 'You know the old sayin' about a bird
in the hand bein' worth two in the bush, but from long experience,'
says he, 'I've learned that it's the other way with women. A woman in
the bush is worth two in the hand, so keep her in the bush as long as
you can.'

"Well, they said Hamilton burst out laughin', and seein' that the old
man was too far gone to give him any information, he called up all the
servants on the place, and he pulled out a handful o' silver and
threw it around amongst 'em, and by questionin' this one and that one
he found out which way Miss Amaryllis had gone, and away he went after
her as hard as he could gallop. And, to make a long story short, he
hunted around over the biggest half of Warren County, and he wore out
two or three horses, before he found Miss Amaryllis.

"She'd gone to a big country place where one of her cousins on the
Elrod side lived, and when Hamilton got there early one mornin', he
found there was goin' to be a party that night, and everybody for
miles around was to be there. So he rode back to town and went to the
county clerk's office and got his license, and then he found out where
the Presbyterian minister lived, and he went there and told him who he
was and what he'd come for. The minister he thought a minute and says
he, 'I don't know what my congregation will say about me going to a
dance to perform a wedding ceremony. Can't you wait till to-morrow
morning?' They said Hamilton stamped his foot and swore--swearin' was
a Schuyler failin'--and says he, 'I've waited five years, and here you
ask me to wait till to-morrow morning.' Says he, 'Is there water or
milk in your veins?'

"And the minister laughed, and says he, 'No, there's blood in my
veins, the sam