"but blessed if I know
why they should mean easy death when they yoke 'em together." "That's
because you ain't never paid no 'tention to entomology," said Timothy.
"Aaron Boynton was master o' more 'ologies than you could shake a stick
at, but he used to say I beat him on entomology. Words air cur'ous
things sometimes, as I know, hevin' had consid'able leisure time to read
when I was joggin' 'bout the country an' bein' brought into contack with
men o' learnin'. The way I worked it out, not wishin' to ask Parson any
more questions, bein' something of a scholard myself, is this: The youth
in Ashy is a peculiar kind o' youth, 'n' their religion disposes 'em to
lay no kind o' stress on huming life. When anything goes wrong with
'em an' they get a set-back in war, or business, or affairs with
women-folks, they want to die right off; so they take a sword an' stan'
it straight up wherever they happen to be, in the shed or the barn, or
the henhouse, an' they p'int the sharp end right to their waist-line,
where the bowels an' other vital organisms is lowcated; an' then they
fall on to it. It runs 'em right through to the back an' kills 'em like
a shot, and that's the way I cal'late the youth in Ashy dies, if my
entomology is correct, as it gen'ally is."

"Don't seem an easy death to me," argued Okra, "but I ain't no scholard.
What college did thou attend to, Tim?"

"I don't hold no diaploma," responded Timothy, "though I attended to
Wareham Academy quite a spell, the same time as your sister was goin' to
Wareham Seminary where eddication is still bein' disseminated though of
an awful poor kind, compared to the old times."

"It's live an' larn," said the storekeeper respectfully. "I never
thought of a Seminary bein' a place of dissemination before, but you can
see the two words is near kin."

"You can't alters tell by the sound," said Timothy instructively.
"Sometimes two words'll start from the same root, an' branch out
diff'rent, like 'critter' an' 'hypocritter.' A 'hypocritter' must
natcherally start by bein' a 'critter,' but a critter ain't obliged to
be a 'hypocritter' 'thout he wants to."

"I should hope not," interpolated Abel Day, piously. "Entomology must be
an awful interest-in' study, though I never thought of observin' words
myself, kept to avoid vulgar language an' profanity."

"Husshon's a cur'ous word for a man," inter-jected Bill Dunham with a
last despairing effort. "I remember seein' a Husshon once that--