DAVE
arrested and sent to jail for turning out such a nice son."
"Come along," says I. "We'll all be there sooner or later, anyhow—the way things are going. It'll be a fine place to keep a little boy out of mischief."
"Little boy!" says Dave, lifting me as easy, and carrying me around the room on his shoulder. "Now you behave!"
He slams me down in a chair and hugs me.
"Take notice," says he, "that I won't be crowded out of house and home by no second-hand female by-marriage cousin."
"Who told you about her?" asks I.
"Told me? Everybody along the road from Virginia to here. Ben Crider and she are good friends."
"Now, you don't say so," says I, a good bit soprized at that. "I wonder where she and Ben met."
"I don't know," says Dave, "but he thinks she's a noble woman!"
Dave laughs at that, as if he knew the sort
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