"Now look a-here, Josh Butterfield; you don't want to be talkin' that
way," his wife said, bitterly. "Bad enough to have folks that don't
know no better pokin' fun at her; but I ain't a-goin' to have you do
it."

"Well, I was only just sayin'--"

"Well, don't you say it; that's all."

Josh poked a gnarled thumb down into the bowl of his pipe,
reflectively. "You ain't got a match about you, have you, Emmy?" he
said, coaxingly.

Mrs. Butterfield rose and went into the kitchen to get the match; when
she handed it to him, she said, sighing, "I'm just 'most sick over
it."

"You do seem consid'able shuck up," Josh said, kindly.

"Well,--I know Lizzie's just doin' it out of pure goodness; but she'll
'most starve."

"I don't see myself how she's calculatin' to run things," Josh
ruminated; "course Jim's pension wa'n't much, but it was somethin'.
And without it--"

"Without it?--land! Is the government goin' to stop pensions? There! I
never did like the President!"

"No; the government ain't goin' to stop it. Lizzie Graham's goin' to