an' comes of as good a Kaintucky fam'ly as ever distils its own
whiskey or loses its money on a hoss. Son, I tells you this prior."
This last reproachfully.

"No, Colonel Sterett ain't old none--not what you-all would call
aged. When he comes weavin' into Wolfville that time, I reckons now
Colonel Sterett is mighty likely about twenty-odd years younger than
me, an' at that time I shows about fifty rings on my horns. As for
eddication, he's shore a even break with Doc Peets, an' as I remarks
frequent, I never calls the hand of that gent in Arizona who for a
lib'ral enlightenment is bullsnakes to rattlesnakes with Peets.

"Speakin' about who Colonel Sterett is, he onfolds his pedigree in
full one evenin' when we're all sort o' self-herded in the New York
Store. Which his story is a proud one, an' I'm a jedge because comin
as I do from Tennessee myse'f, nacherally I saveys all about
Kaintucky. Thar's three grades of folks in Kaintucky, the same bein'
contingent entire on whereabouts them folks is camped. Thar's the
Bloo Grass deestrict, the Pennyr'yal deestrict, an' the Purchase.
The Bloo Grass folks is the 'ristocrats, while them low-flung trash
from the Purchase is a heap plebeian. The Pennyr'yal outfit is kind
o' hesitatin' 'round between a balk an' a break-down in between the
other two, an' is part 'ristocratic that a-way an' part mud. As for
Colonel Sterett, he's pure strain Bloo Grass, an' he shows it. I'll
say this for the Colonel, an' it shorely knits me to him from the
first, he could take a bigger drink of whiskey without sugar or
water than ever I sees a gent take in my life.

"That time I alloods to, when Colonel Sterett vouchsafes them
recollections, we-all is in the r'ar wareroom of the New York Store