an of mules. Miss Sypher wuz deadly afraid of 'em.
But the Deacon wanted 'em, and so they made her happily agonized, she
wuz so afraid of their heels and their brays, and so highly tickled
with the Deacon's joy. Well, it turned out queer as a dog, but just
after we started on our trip abroad Tirzah said that the Deacon fell
and broke his leg in the same place and the same spot on the sidewalk;
the Jonesvillians are slack, it wuzn't mended proper. And Miss Sypher
thought that she would git some money jest as he did. She didn't think
on't for quite a spell, Tirzah writ. She wuz so bound up in the Deacon
and never left his side night or day, nor took off her clothes only to
wash 'em for two weeks, jest bent over his couch and drowged round
waitin' on him, for he wuz dretful notional and hard to git along
with. But she loved to be jawed at, dearly, for she said it made her
think he would git along, and when he would find fault with her and
throw things, she smiled gladly, thinkin' it wuz a good sign.

Well, when he got a little better so she could lay down herself and
rest a little, the thought come to her that she would git some money
for his broken leg jest as he had for hern. She thought that she would
like to buy him a suit of very nice clothes and a gold chain, and
build a mule barn for the mules, but the law wouldn't give Miss Deacon
Sypher a cent; the law said that if anything wuz gin it would go to
the Deacon's next of kin, a brother who lived way off in the
Michigan.

The Deacon owned her bones, but she didn't own the Deacon's!

And I wonnered at it as much as Tommy ever wonnered over anything why
her broken limb, and all the emoluments from it, belonged to him, and
his broken leg and the proprietary rights in it belonged to a man way
out in the Michigan that he hadn't seen for ten years and didn't speke
to (owin' to trouble about property), and after Miss Deacon Sypher had
worshipped him and waited on him for thirty years like a happy surf.

Well, so it wuz. I said it seemed queer, but Arvilly said that it
wuzn't queer at all. She sez: "One of my letters from home to-day had
a worse case in it than that." Sez she, "You remember Willie Henzy,
Deacon Henzy's grandchild, in Brooklyn. You know how he got run over
and killed by a trolley car."

"Yes," sez I, "sweet little creeter; Sister Henzy told me about it
with the tears runnin' down her cheeks. They all worshipped that
child, he wuz jest as pretty and bright