hion-paper pictures you 've seen,
an' the very day any new styles come to Boston Fiddy Maddox would hev
'em before sundown; the biggest bustles 'n' the highest hats 'n' the
tightest skirts 'n' the longest tails to 'em; she'd git 'em somehow,
anyhow! Dixie wa'n't out o' money when he come here, an' a spell
afterwards there was more 'n a thousand dollars fell to him from his
father's folks down South. Well, Fiddy made that fly, I tell you! Dixie
bought a top buggy 'n' a sorrel hoss, 'n' they was on the road most o'
the time when he wa'n't to work; 'n' when he was, she 'd go with Lem
Simmons, 'n' Dixie none the wiser. Mis Maddox was lookin' up a new
husband jest then, so 't she didn't interfere"--

"She was the same kind o' goods, anyhow," interpolated Ob Tarbox.

"Yes, she was one of them women folks that air so light-minded you can't
anchor 'em down with a sewin'-machine, nor a dishpan, nor a husband 'n'
young ones, nor no namable kind of a thing; the least wind blows 'em
here 'n' blows 'em there, like dandelion puffs. As time went on, the
widder got herself a beau now 'n' then; but as fast as she hooked 'em,
Fiddy up 'n' took 'em away from her. You see she 'd gethered in most of
her husbands afore Fiddy was old enough to hev her finger in the pie;
but she cut her eye-teeth early, Fiddy did, 'n' there wa'n't no kind of
a feller come to set up with the widder but she 'd everlastin'ly grab
him, if she hed any use fer him, 'n' then there 'd be Hail Columby, I
tell yer. But Dixie, he was 's blind 's a bat 'n' deef 's a post. He
could n't see nothin' but Fiddy, 'n' he couldn't see her very plain."

"He hed warnin's enough," put in Pitt Packard, though Jabe Slocum never
needed any assistance in spinning a yarn.

"Warnin's! I should think he hed. The Seventh Day Baptist minister went
so fur as to preach at him. 'The Apostle Paul gin heed,' was the text.
'Why did he gin heed?' says he. 'Because he heerd. If he hadn't 'a'
heerd, he couldn't 'a' gin heed, 'n' 't wouldn't 'a' done him no good
to 'a' heerd 'thout he gin heed!' Wall, it helped consid'ble many in
the congregation, 'specially them that was in the habit of hearin' 'n'
heedin', but it rolled right off Dixie like water off a duck's back. He
'n' Fiddy was seen over to the ballin' alley to Wareham next day, 'n'
they didn't come back for a week."

"'He gin her his hand,
And he made her his own,'"

sang little Brad Gibson.

"He hed gin her his hand, but no m