But lovely Peter! Father handed me back my mistreating Algy with interest on the investment. Pheeew! And talk! I was the most cowardly brute in the country--to assault and batter a poor, nice, gentlemanly little boy--a great big hulking scoundrel like myself--why, it passed all crimes in history. Old Uncle Nero scratching the fiddle, while the fire-insurance companies tore their hair, was a public benefactor compared to me. That passed. I was only hindered, not stopped, in my reckless career of Village Pride. I'm a kind of determined cuss. But Fate sprung a stuffed deck on me. I did a piece of reforming really worth doing, but it cost me my home. Moreover, I was perfectly innocent of the intention. Don't it beat the devil? To tell it longhand, the play come up like this: We had a party in our town who deserved a statue in the Hall--Mary Ann McCracken by name. She was a Holy Terror. Never before nor since have I seen anything like Mary Ann. I reckon she had about sixty years to her credit, and two hundred pounds to show for 'em. She ran a dairy up on the hill, doing her own milking and delivering, with only one long-suffering man to help out. I always remember that man walking around with one hand flying in the air, talking to himself, but when Miss Mary Ann said in her bass voice, "Pete! You Pete!" "Yessum, yessum!" says Pete as polite as possible. The old lady used to bend slowly toward you, as if taking aim with her nose, and she fired her remarks through and through you. She'd sprung a plank somewhere, and had a little list to the side, but not at all enough so she couldn't take care of her own business and any other body's that come her way. When she went by father's house she used to roar, "Hark, froom the toomb--a doooleful sound!" because she hated everything concerning father's church, from the cellar to the lightning-rod. One day she was talking to mother, that she happened to like, snorting scornful, as was her custom, when father had the bad luck to appear on the scene. "Adele Delatter," says Mary Ann, "what made you marry that man?" pointing a finger at father like a horse-pistol. "What made you marry him, heh? heh? Don't you answer me. Hunh. He ain't got blood in his veins at all; he turns decent vittels to vinegar. Hah. His mother's milk curddled in his stummick." She humped up her back and shook both fists. "He orter married _me_!" says she; "I'd 'a' fixed him! He'd orter married ME!" She b'iled over entirely and galloped for the gate. "I'd wring his cussed neck, if I stayed a minute longer!" she hollers. When she got in the wagon she rumbled and "pah'd" and "humphed." Then she stuck her red face out and yelled, "Orter married me. _I'd_ give him all the hell he needed! Pah, pish, yah! Git out o' here, Jacky hoss, before you take to singin' hymns!"