"That's jest like the mock-modesty of the wimmin folks all the world over, and a body might think they had the hull supply and nothin' shorter; but I tell ye it's the heartiest sow that makes the least noise, and half this here modesty is all sham. Onct in a while these here awful modest critters git shook down a bit, I guess; and gheewhillikins! ef it don't do me good to see it. I recollect I was goin' down from Augusty some two years ago, in the old stage that Sammy Tompkins druv, and we had one of the she-critters aboard--and she _was_ a scrouger, I tell ye! Bonnet red as a blaze, and stuck all over with stiff geeranium blows, a hump like a Hottentot gal, and sich ankles! but hold your horses, I'm gettin' ahead of time. We was awful crowded, and no mistake--piled right on top of each other, like so many layers of cabbage; and the way that gal squealed when we struck a rut, was a caution to screech owls. And she was takin' up her sheer of the coach, too, I guess; and kind of stretched her walkin' geer way under the seat in front of her, and out t'other side, just to brace herself agin the diffikilties of travel. It being pretty bad goin' down in them parts, she had on a pair of her brother's butes, and they was what she wouldn't have had seen if she'd knowed it. One of the fellers on the middle seat was Zeb Green--gone to glory some time ago--and when he spied them butes, he winked to me, and sung out: "Gheewhillikins! who owns these ere big trotters?" "Now, ye see, the she-critter was one of yer modest ones, and she wouldn't have owned up for the world, after that. Says she: "'I guess they ain't mine.' "Zeb see her game in a twinklin', and he was a tall one for a lark; so says he: "'I rayther guess there's petticuts goes with them mud mashers.' "The gal she flamed up at that, and says she: "'I guess you're barkin' up the wrong saplin', Major, and yer must have a most audacious turkey on, not to know yer own butes.' "Sich lyin' tuk Zeb all aback for a minute; but he combed up his bristles again, and tried her on another trail. "'Now, you don't mean to come for to insinuate that them ere's _my_ butes, and I not know it?' says he: "She was in for it then, and wouldn't back down; so says she: "'In course I do, Major, and you'd better look out fur your own leather.' "Zeb took a chaw of his terbacky, and says he: "'Well, if you says it's so, I'm bound to swaller the oyster; but I'll be dod-rotted if my bute-maker won't hev to shave my last next winter.' "I seen right off that Zeb was up to the biggest kind of a spree, and I knew them butes was the gist of it; cause ye see the she-critter couldn't hull 'em in nohow, after what she'd said. "We went wrigglin' along for a while as still as cats in a milk-house, and the butes stayed where they was. But pretty soon Zeb began to grow uneasy like, and screwed up his ugly nose, like as if he was took with the pangs, and the doctor gone a courtin'.