“More’s the pity,” exclaimed the major’s wife. “I ought to have had one, a great big double-j’inted chap. But you needn’t tell me about the old Judge,” she went on. “He tried to out-Yankee the Yankees up yonder in Atlanty, an’ now he’s a-trying to out-Yankee them down here. Lord! You needn’t tell me a thing about old Judge Bascom. Show me a man that’s been wrapped up with the Radicals, and I’ll show you a man that ain’t got no better sense than to try to chousel somebody. I’d just as lief see Underwood have the Bascom Place as the old Judge, every bit and grain.” “Well, I hadn’t,” said the major emphatically. “No, ner me nuther,” said Mr. Joe-Bob Grissom. “Hit may be right, but hit don’t look right. Pap used to say he’d never be happy ontel the Bascoms come back inter the’r prop’ty.” “Well, he’s dead, ain’t he?” inquired Mrs. Bass in a tone that showed she had the best of the argument. “Yessum,” said Mr. Grissom, shifting about in his chair and crossing his legs, as if anxious to dispose of an unpleasant subject, “yessum, pap’s done dead.” To this statement, after a somewhat embarrassing silence, he added: “Pap took an’ died a long time ago.” “Yes,” said Mrs. Bass in a gentler tone, “and I’ll warrant you that when he died he wasn’t pestered ’bout whether the Bascoms owned the Place or not. Did he make any complaints?” “No’m,” replied Mr. Grissom in a reminiscent way, “I can’t say that he did. He jest didn’t bother about ’em. Hit looked like they jest natchally slipped outer his mind.” “Why, certainly,” said Mrs. Bass, with a little shake of her head; “they slipped outer your pa’s mind, and now they say the old Judge has slipped out of his own mind.” “Well, we needn’t boast of it, Sarah,” remarked the major, with a feeble attempt at severity. “Nobody knows the day when some of us may be twisted around. We’ve no room to brag.” “No, we ain’t,” said his wife, bridling up. “I’ve trembled for you a many a day when you thought I was thinking about something else,—a many a day.” “Now you know mighty well, Sarah, that no good-natured man like me ain’t a-gwine to up an’ lose their mind, jest dry so,” said the major earnestly. “They’ve got to have some mighty big trouble.” “Yes,” said Mrs. Bass, grimly, “and they have to have mind too, I reckon. Nobody that never had a horse ever lost one.” The major nodded his head at Joe-Bob Grissom, as much as to say that it was only a very able man who could afford to have such a sprightly wife. The mute suggestion, however, was lost on Grissom, who was accustomed to taking life seriously. “I hear a mighty heap of talk,” he said, “but I ain’t never been so mighty certain an’ shore that the old Judge is lost his mind. There’d be lots of fun ef it should happen to be that he had the papers all made out in his pocket, an’ I’ve hearn some hints that-a-way.”