"
Then the dear old lady who said she was a free thinker and wasn't
ashamed of it; guessed she knew as much as the minister 'bout this world
or the next; liked nothing better than to set down Sunday afternoons
after she'd fed her hens and read Ingersoll. "What books of his have
you?" I asked.
She handed me a small paper-bound volume which did not look like any of
"Bob's" productions. It was a Guide Book through Picturesque Vermont by
Ernest Ingersoll!
And I must not omit the queer sayings of a simple-hearted hired man on a
friend's farm.
Oh, for a photo of him as I saw him one cold, rainy morning tending
Jason Kibby's dozen cows. He had on a rubber coat and cap, but his
trouser legs were rolled above the knee and he was barefoot, "Hannibal,"
I shouted, "you'll take cold with your feet in that wet grass!"
"Gueth not, Marm," he lisped back cheerily. "I never cared for shooth
mythelf."
He was always shouting across the way to inquire if "
thith wath hot
enough or cold enough to thute
me?" As if I had expressed a strong
desire for phenomenal extremes of temperature. One morning he suddenly
departed. I met him trudging along with three hats jammed on to his head
and a rubber coat under his arm, for 'twas a fine day.
"Why, Hanny!" I exclaimed, "where are you going in such haste?"
"Mithter Kibby told me to go to Halifax, and--I'm going!"
Next, the man who was anxious to go into partnership with me.
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