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e than to buy five or six years ago when he was layin' in a stock o' summer goods. ("Old man Sanford run a country store, child, along with his farmin'," interpolated Aunt Jane.) And,' says she, 'after they'd stayed in the store three or four seasons I took 'em and wore 'em to keep 'em from bein' a dead loss. And when Henry come out o' the army he was half naked and more'n half dead, betwixt the Yankees and the chills and fever, and I put these shirts on him to protect his chest.' "Well, Emmeline said as soon as the old lady begun talkin', her heart got as light as a feather, and she felt like a thousand pounds had been lifted off of her mind. But she said she looked around at Henry, and he was watchin' to see how she'd take it, and all at once he burst out laughin', and that made her mad again, and she thought about all the trouble she'd been through, and she begun cry in' again and says she, 'Oh! why didn't you tell me that? Why didn't you tell me?' Emmeline said Henry's mother come over and put her arms around her and says she, 'Henry Sanford, what prank have you been playin' on your wife? Tell me this minute.' And Henry begun explainin' things and tryin' to smooth it over, and I reckon he thought his mother'd see the joke jest like he did, but she didn't. She looked at Henry over her spectacles mighty stern and says she, 'Henry, I've always been afeard you didn't have your full share o' punishment whilst you were growin' up, bein' the youngest child, and if it wasn't that you're a married man I'd certainly give you one o' the whippin's you missed when you were a boy.' And Henry says, 'Well, maybe I ought to be punished for not tellin' Emmeline, but I jest thought I'd play a joke on her, and if Emmeline had only had a little confidence in me it wouldn't 'a' worried her the way it did.' And old lady Sanford, she says, 'Confidence! Confidence! There's jest one person I put my confidence in, and that's Almighty God.' Says she, 'If a man's crippled in both feet, and the front door and the back door's locked, and I've got both my eyes on him, I may make out to trust him a minute or two, but that's about all.' Says she, 'Of course a woman ought to trust her husband; but that don't mean that she's got to shut her eyes and her ears and throw away her common sense.' Says she, 'Emmeline don't know as much about you as your father knows about that old roan mare he bought day before yesterday. A man's jest like a horse,' says s
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