Just what the occasion was he did not explain; but Trusty, possibly
receiving suggestive glimmers of inward light on the subject, and
being at this particular moment otherwise interested, began to show
evidence of unexpected combativeness.

"M-m-m--I ain' gwine be 'scuse fer no 'casion," he mumbled
cantankerously.

"Come, now, boy, ya-as, yer is, too!" disagreed the parent, advancing
toward the subject of complication. "Yer see, Miss! Ain't I tole yer
he's de hard-haidedes' chile? Fus I'se 'blige whup 'im school, 'n'
nex' I cyan' git 'im 'way ter bless me! Ain't I jes tole yer!" And
again, with a firm hand, Trusty was lifted and transported across the
room to the open door. Miss North hastily suggested the final
formalities requisite for an excuse, but her voice was quite lost
among the reverberations of a more powerful organ:

"Ain't I jes tole yer so! Ya-as, yer is, too! Ain't I jes tole yer!
Come 'long, now; jes come 'long, now!"

They disappeared through the doorway, and then only the final
reverberations came back to them as Trusty was triumphantly exhorted
on his way.

* * * * *

But the worst of vicissitudes, and the best of them, only wait to give
place to new ones, and the old days change to new ones and the weeks
and the months go on; and, as the oft-repeated act becomes a habit, so
it had finally become an unvarying habit for Ezekiel to arrive at