feet will be tempted to step on him," sez I. "I don't see how
she can help it, if she calcerlates to get round any, and walk."
Sez I, "Sprout up and be somebody. She is a good little creeter,
but no better than you are, Abram; be a man."

And he would try to be. I could see him try. But one of her
soft little glances, specially if it wuz kind and tender to him,
es it wuz a good deal of the time, why it would just overthrow
him ag'in. He would collapse and become nothin' ag'in, before
her. Why I have hearn him sing that old him, a lookin' right at
Ardelia stiddy:

"Oh to be nothin', nothin'!"

And thinks I to myself, "if this keeps on, you are in a fairway
to git your wish."

He wuz a good singer, a beartone, and she a secent. They loved
to sing together. They needed some air, but then they got along
without it; and it sounded quite well, though rather low and
deep.

Wall, it run along for weeks and weeks, he with his hopes a
risin' up sometimes like his yeast and then bein' pounded down
ag'in like his bread, under the hard knuckles of a woman's
capricious cruelty. For I must say that she did, for sech a soft
littte creeter, have cold and cruel ways to Abram. (But I s'pose
it wuz when she got to thinkin' about the Prince, or some other
genteel lover.)