'em," remarked Samantha scathingly, as she went to the buttery for
provisions.

"Wall," said Laigs, looking at her with his most irritating smile, as he
sat down at the kitchen table, "I don't find I git thru any more work by
tumblin' out o' bed 't sun-up 'n I dew 'f I lay a spell 'n' let the
univarse git het up 'n' runnin' a leetle mite. 'Slow 'n' easy goes fur
in a day' 's my motto. Rhapseny, she used to say she should think I'd be
ashamed to lay abed so late. 'Wall, I be,' s' I, 'but I'd ruther be
ashamed 'n git up!' But you're an awful good cook, Samanthy, if ye air
allers in a hurry, 'n' if yer hev got a sharp tongue!"

"The less you say 'bout my tongue the better!" snapped Samantha.

"Right you are," answered Jabe with a good-natured grin, as he went on
with his breakfast. He had a huge appetite, another grievance in
Samantha's eyes. She always said "there was no need of his being so
slab-sided 'n' slack-twisted 'n' knuckle-jointed,--that he eat enough in
all conscience, but he wouldn't take the trouble to find the victuals
that would fat him up 'n' fill out his bag o' bones."

Just as Samantha's well-cooked viands began to disappear in Jabe's
capacious mouth (he always ate precisely as if he were stoking an
engine) his eye rested upon a strange object by the wood-box, and he put
down his knife and ejaculated, "Well, I swan! Now when 'n' where'd I see
that baby-shay? Why, 't was yesterday. Well, I vow, them young ones was
comin' here, was they?"

"What young ones?" asked Miss Vilda, exchanging astonished glances with
Samantha.