“Th’owed me, would you? Well, I’d ’a’ liked to hev seen you a-th’owin’ me.” He shook his stick at the braggart. “Why, don’t you know that ’hen I was young I was the best wrastler in the walley; didn’t you ever hear o’ the great wrastlin’ me and Simon Cruller done up to Swampy Holler school-house?” “Did Noar act as empire?” asked the Loafer. “What does you mean be talkin’ of Noar an’ sech like ’hen I’m tellin’ of wrastlin’? Tryin’ to change the subject I s’pose, eh?” cried the Patriarch, reddening with anger. “Don’t you know----” “Tut-tut, Gran’pap,” said the Storekeeper, gently taking the raised cane in his hand and forcing it back into an upright position, one end resting on the floor, while on the other were piled the old man’s two fat hands. “Don’t mind him. Go on with your story.” The Patriarch’s wrath passed as quickly as it had come. He speedily wandered back into his youth, and soon was so deep in the history of Simon Cruller, of Simon Cruller’s family and of Becky Stump as to be completely oblivious to his tormentor’s presence. “Me an’ Sime Cruller was buddies,” he began at length. “That was tell we both kind o’ set our minds on gittin’ Becky Stump. You uns never seen her, eh? Well, mebbe you never seen her grave-stun. It stands be the alderberry bushes in the buryin’-groun’, an’ ef you hain’t seen it ye otter, fer then ye might git an idee what sort o’ a woman she was. Pretty? Why, she was a model, she was--a perfect model. Hair? You uns don’t often see sech hair nowadays ez Becky Stump hed--soft an’ black like. Eyes? Why, they sparkled jest like new buggy paint. An’ mighty souls, but she could plough! She wasn’t none of your modern girls ez is too proud to plough. Many a day I set over on the porch at our placet an’ looked down acrosst the walley an’ seen her a-steppin’ th’oo the fiel’, an’ I thot how I’d like to hev one han’le while she’d hev the other, an’ we’d go trampin’ along life’s furrow together.” “Now Gran’pap, I ’low you’ve ben readin’----” “Can’t you keep still a piece?” roared the Miller. The Loafer returned to his pipe and silence. “The whole thing come to a pint at a spellin’ bee up to Swampy Holler school,” continued the Patriarch, unmindful of the interruption. “Becky Stump was there an’ looked onusual pretty, fer it was cold outside an’ the win’ hed made her face all red on the drive over from home. Sime was there, too, togged out in store clothes, his hair all plastered down with bear ile, an’ with a fine silk tie aroun’ his collar that ’ud ’a’ ketched the girls real hard hed I not hed a prettier one.