LINK Smart!--Wall, if I could git a hull man to swap legs with me, mebbe I'd arn my keep. But this here settin' dead an' alive, without no legs, day in, day out, don't make an old hoss wuth his oats. POLLY (_cheerfully_) I guess you'll soon be walkin' round. LINK Not if that doctor feller has his say: He says I can't never go agin this side o' Jordan; and looks like he's 'bout right.--Nine months to-morrer, Polly, gal, sence I had that stroke. POLLY (_pointing to the ox-yoke_) You're fitter sittin' than most folks standin'. LINK (_briskly_) Oh, they can't keep my two hands from makin' ox-yokes. That's my second natur' sence I was a boy. (_Again in the distance a bugle sounds._ LINK _starts._) What's that? POLLY Why, that's the army veterans down to the graveyard. This is Decoration mornin': you ain't forgot? LINK So't is, so't is. Roger, your young man--ha! (_chuckling_) he come and axed me was I a-goin' to the cemetery. "Me? Don't I look it?" says I. Ha! "Don't I look it?" POLLY He meant--to decorate the graves. LINK O' course; but I must take my little laugh. I told him I guessed I wa'n't persent'ble anyhow, my mustache and my boots wa'n't blacked this mornin'. I don't jest like t' talk about my legs.-- Be you a-goin' to take your young school folks, Polly? POLLY Dear no! I told my boys and girls to march up this way with the band. I said I'd be a-stayin' home and learnin' how to keep school in the woodpile here with you. LINK (_looking up at her proudly_) Schoolma'am at seventeen! Some smart, I tell ye! POLLY (_caressing him_) Schoolmaster, you, past seventy; that's smarter! I tell 'em I learn from you, so's I can teach my young folks what the study-books leave out. LINK Sure ye don't want to jine the celebratin'? POLLY No, _sir!_ We're goin' to celebrate right here, and you're to teach me to keep school some more. (_She holds ready for him the blue coat and hat._) LINK (_looking up_) What's thar? POLLY Your teachin' rig. (_She helps him on with it._)