The influence of the burning elm was very perceptible in Mrs. Bowles’s manner after that; for a time she was silent and preoccupied, and roused herself only to rebuke the children, unmindful of the story that would go down to the Cove. Sim and A’minty were quick to note the change of mood, and deported themselves with a dodging expectation; but Bob, a boy of four, sat before the fire, now broadly smiling, and now nodding and dozing in his chair. He was plump and ruddy, his big eyes were hazel and bright, and his hair, cropped in a unique manner by perverse shears, heightened the grotesque callowness of his aspect. The dogs walked casually over him; the cats climbed upon him, and made him convenient to reach the bowl of milk on the table; the chickens did not scruple to perch upon the arms of his chair, or even on his knee, or his hand, or his head. The world was not easy to small Bob Bowles, but his was the temperament to make it easier. A good-tempered, docile creature he was, for he had no sensitive sentiments to assuage when the smart to his flesh had ceased. The talk fell among the men, and presently Teck was recounting his garbled version of the preaching he had heard at the camp-meeting in the Cove. The speed that Jehu made, as he so gallantly drove into Jezreel, had impressed him deeply. “I wisht I knowed edzac’ly how fas’ he traveled, an’ sech time ez he made,” he said wistfully. “Pa’son never read that.” The seeming barbarity of the old chronicles, the poetic justice meted out with so unfaltering a hand, had no morbid effect upon his sensibilities. It was but the fit rounding of the heroic tale. The ghastly details, however, were an aggravation to Mrs. Bowles’s darkened mood. “Air _that_ in the Bible?” she would cry in dismay. “Waal, sir! I’m glad them folks air gone! I’ll be bound they made a heap o’ trouble. They hed ter bar up the door, in them days, _I know_. Wuss’n the boys in the Cove.” She tried to change the theme. She rallied her amiability. She flashed her bead-like eyes at cousin Eli with her old-time coquetry, and her renewed desire that only triumphant accounts might go down to the Cove was manifest in her eager anxiety to put the small household belongings before him in their best light. She seemed nearer akin to her household effects as she sought to gloss over any imperfection. Her recognition of their deficiencies had hitherto been couched in the form of sneers, to acquaint her husband with the damage “that ’oman” had done to them. “I dunno what ails that cheer ez ye air settin’ in ter creak so, cousin Eli,” she observed. “It’s plumb strong. ’Tain’t goin’ ter let ye down.” Her reassuring smile showed her strong white teeth. Its suavity was gone before its distention relaxed, as she turned suddenly to her husband. “Did ennybody ever put one e-end o’ a coffin inter it?” she asked breathlessly.