one on 'em. But it wuz tuff for 'em, very tuff. And their bein' so dretful
humbly wuz another drawback to 'em, though that too wuz perfectly lawful,
as everybody knows.

And Serepta looked as bad agin as she would otherwise on account of her
teeth. It wuz after Lank had begun to git after this other woman, and wuz
indifferent to his wife's looks that Serepta had a new set of teeth on her
upper jaw. And they sot out and made her look so bad it fairly made her
ache to look at herself in the glass. And they hurt her gooms too, and she
carried 'em back to the dentist and wanted him to make her another set, but
he acted mean and wouldn't take 'em back, and sued Lank for the pay. And
they had a law-suit. And the law bein' such that a woman can't testify in
court, in any matter that is of mutual interest to husband and wife, and
Lank wantin' to act mean, said that they wuz good sound teeth.

And there Serepta sot right in front of 'em with her gooms achin' and her
face all swelled out, and lookin' like furiation, and couldn't say a word.
But she had to give in to the law. And ruther than go toothless she wears
'em to this day, and I believe it is the raspin' of them teeth aginst her
gooms and her discouraged, mad feelin's every time she looks in the glass
that helps embitter her towards men, and the laws men have made, so's a
woman can't have control of her own teeth and her own bones.

Serepta went home about 5 P.M., I promisin' sacred to do her errents for
her.

And I gin a deep, happy sithe after I shot the door behind her, and I sez
to Josiah I do hope that's the very last errent we will have to carry to
Washington, D.C., for the Jonesvillians.