round some petickular mountain top, or bureau or human bein'. And
then it is yanked up agin, poor little runnin' vine, and run with
-- and so on -- and so on -- and so on.

Why sometimes it makes me fairly heart-sick to think on't. And I
fairly envy our old 4 fathers, who used to set down for several
hundred years in one spot. They used to get real rested, it must
be they did.

Jacob now, settin' right by that well of his'n for pretty nigh two
hundred years. How much store he must have set by it during the
last hundred years of 'em! How attached he must have been to it!

Good land! Where is there a well that one of our rich old
American patriarks will set down by for two years, leavin' off the
orts. There haint none, there haint no such a well. Our
patriarks haint fond of well water, anyway.

And old Miss Abraham now, and Miss Isaac -- what stay to home
wimmen they wuz, and equinomical!

What a good contented creeter Sarah Abraham wuz. How settled
down, and stiddy, stayin' right to home for hundreds of years.
Not gettin' rampent for a wider spear, not a coaxin' old Mr.
Abraham nights to take her to summer resorts, and winter hants of
fashion.

No, old Mr. Abraham went to bed, and went to sleep for all of her.

And when they did once in a hundred years, or so, make up their