"
Andrew McCulloch puffed and looked surprised and Pemberton said:
"Ran in the family?"
"Aye. Then she come across the bay in a rowboat, and I was diggin'
clams, and she says. 'If you dasn't come to the house, what dast you
do?' I see the minister down the beach, diggin' clams, an' he had
eleven children, he had, diggin' clams, and she looked at him too,
and I says, 'I das' say he'd rather'n dig clams.' We went fishin'
afterward, and got eight barrel o' herring."
"You don't say!" says Andrew McCulloch, puffing and looked surprised.
Uncle Abimelech kept his eyes fixed on the kettle and wandered away
in his mind. Then Captain Tom roused himself, and spoke thoughtfully.
"It was different with me," he said. "Her parents wanted another
one. He was richer, but nowise so good-looking. I says to her, 'Cut
and run!' but she wouldn't, as being undutiful. She took him. His
name was Jones. He went bankrupt, and got paralysis, and is living
still. Her parents died in different poorhouses."
Pemberton looked surprised at this too, and then thoughtful, and
then he winked at Stevey Todd, who passed it back.
"I got my wife out of the back window of a boarding school, second
story," said Pemberton.
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