y her, she wuz so young, but
everybody spozed they wuz as good as engaged when Jabez Wind come to
Jonesville to live with his uncle, old Kellup Wind. He lost his wife,
and Miss Wind, his brother's widder, come to keep house for him and
brung Jabez with her. I hurn it wuz the bargain she wuz to have two
dollars a week and Jabez'es board. That showed me what he wuz, a young
man twenty-five years old hangin' on to his mother's apron strings to
support him, or ruther hangin' onto her hard workin' fingers, she wuz a
good housekeeper.

Well, Jabez made such a splurge in the social pool of Jonesville
society, he made such florid eloquent boasts of the wonderful things he
wuz goin' to do in the near future; his clothes wuz so showy, and his
looks so showy (shaller I called it), with beady shiny black eyes, red
cheeks, mustache and whiskers naturally red like his hair, but dyed
black, and he played the fiddle so sweet, the girls said, and he sung
comic songs so bea-eu-ti-ful, and he danced so light that he become a
general favorite in Jonesville society and the girls all seemed to seek
after him. But from the first he singled out Rosy as the object of his
special patronizin' affection. She wuz well off, her pa left her a good
property in money besides bein' so pretty and good herself.

And she, girls are so queer, the best of 'em, from the very fact that
his affection wuz so patronizin' and down stoopin' to her, and kinder
oncertain, for onlike Royal he would have spells of slightin' her and
waitin' on other girls, why mebby for this very reason she seemed to be
carried some distance away with him, and believed all his grand idees
and looked forward to the realization of his stupendious schemes, high
soundin' schemes, which had took him no furder than the middle of the
creek and his uncle's back yard.

His uncle didn't believe in him no more than I did, but stood it with
him on account of Karen, bein' a man that loved domestic comfort, and
havin' lived in dirt, on pan-cakes and canned meats durin' different
rains of incompetence materialized in hired girl form, before Karen
come. But Karen worshipped Jabez, his highest mounts of future eminence
seemed too low for his footstool in her adorin' eyes, somehow the very
loftiness of his airs to her, his own mother who supported him and
bought his clothes, seemed to render him more precious in her eyes.
Wimmen are queer, queer as dogs.

Well, Jabez knew I wuz onwillin' to have him