t go back
and hitch the horse into the cart, and say what you know as well as I,
that your Aunt Stanshy is a great teetotaler, a leetle too much I think."
[Simes liked his nip.] "But seein' how her minister's in favor of it, she
is wuss than ever. Now to go on. Your father, boy, let me say, had a hand
in this trouble, though not meaningly, and it was this way. Tour father
came to live with your Aunt Stanshy, and one day Tim took him out
a-fishin', and not only tipped a jug to his own lips, but sot it to your
father's also. When they came back home, it was plain they had been up to
suthin' besides fishin'. Well, Tim might as well have touched a lion's
whip--what do you call it?"

"Whelp. I was reading about lions to-day."

"Yes, touched a lion's whelp as touched your father; for didn't Aunt
Stanshy pitch into him! I heard it all. It was when he was a-splittin'
fish, and Aunt Stanshy came out, and didn't she walk into Tim! I never see
an eel skinned more purtily than she dressed Tim for temptin' a poor,
motherless boy, as she called your father. 'Don't!' your father would go,
tryin' to pacify her; 'don't!' It had no more effect than tryin' to fan
out of the way a tornader. Indeed, jest because she and Tim had been on
good terms with one another and understood one another so well, I think
for that reason she was all the hotter. You know when brothers do quarrel,
they go it wuss than other folks. Well, Tim at fust would say nothing but
he was orful mad. He was that kind of mad that you see in the sky when a
thunder-storm is brewin', and yet no rain has fallen; only the flash is
there, and the thunder is there a-rumblin', and the lightnin' is there a
sawin' up and down, but nary a drop of rain! At last Tim spoke, and he
declared it was the last he'd ever have to do with her, and afore he'd ask
a favor of her, he took a horrid oath, he'd see hisself a-drownin' in that
dock fust. I hated to hear him swear that way, for, sez I, 'Young man, you
may get there yet, and you may be glad to have Stanshy's help.' Then he
took a barrel of fish he was fillin', and he was so mad he rolled the
whole mess into the water, sayin' he would have nothin' to do with any
thing that had touched Aunt Stanshy's barn. I asked him why he didn't then
throw himself over! That touched him up, and he grabbed his knives and
pitched them into the dock. It was a queer sight to see them fish in that
barrel floatin' away. But then the rum was in him and madden