ome no coon-dog argyments over me, not while I
remain sound in wind and limb."

"Goon-tog! Who zed goon-tog? Ich tidn't, Hankins tidn't, Ze'kel's wision
tidn't zay nodin pout no goon-tog. What's goon-togs cot do too mit de
end of de vorld? Yonas, you pe a vool, maype."

"The same to yerself, my beloved friend and free and enlightened
feller-citizen. Long may you wave, like a green bay boss, and a
jimson-weed on the sunny side of a board-fence!"

Gottlieb hurried on, finding Jonas much harder to understand than the
prophecies.

"I hear the singing-master is goin' to jine," said Cynthy Ann. "Wonder
ef they'll take him with all his seals and straps, and hair on his upper
lip, with the plain words of the Bible agin gold and costly apparel?
Wonder ef he's tuck in, too?"

"Tuck in? He an't one of that kind. He don't never git tuck in--he tucks
in. He knows which side of his bread's got quince preserves onto it. I
used to run second mate on the Dook of Orleans, and I know his kind.
He'll soar around like a turkey-buzzard fer a while. Presently he'll
'light. He's rusticatin' tell some scrape blows over. An' he'll make
somethin' outen it. Business afore pleasure is his motto. He don't hang
that seducin' grin under them hawky eyes fer nothin'. Wait till the
pious and disinterested example 'lights somewheres. Then look out for
the feathers, won't ye! He won't leave nary bone. But here we air. I
declare, Cynthy, this walk seems _the shortest_, when I'm in superfine,
number-one comp'ny!"

Cynthy was so pleased with this remark, that she did penance in her mind
for a week afterwards. It was so wicked to enjoy one's self out of
class-meeting!

CHAPTER XII.

TWO MISTAKES.

At the singing-school and at the church August waited as impatiently as
possible for some sign of recognition from Julia. He little knew the
fear that beset her. Having seen her hysterical mother prostrated for
weeks by the excitement of a dispute with her father, it seemed to her
that if she turned one look of love and longing toward young Wehle,
whose sweet German voice rang out above the rest in the hymns, she might
kill her mother as quickly as by plunging a knife into her heart. The
steam-doctor, who was the family physician, had warned her and her
father separately of the danger of exciting Mrs. Anderson's most
excitable temper, and now Julia was the slave of her mother's disease.
That lucky hysteria, which the steam-doctor thought a fearful
he