"
"Thar never was sech a man for steers," remarked grandmother,
contemptuously. "Here he's still axin' about steers when he can't hist
himself out of his cheer. If I were you, Abel, I'd tell him he'd better
be steddyin' about everlastin' damnation instead of steers. Steers ain't
goin' to haul him out of hell fire if he once gits down into it."
"Well, you can tell her, Abel," retorted grandfather, "that it's time
enough to holler 'hell-fire!' when you begin to burn."
Mary Jo prevented a rejoinder by appearing with a napkin, which she tied
under his wife's chin, and a little later the old woman could be heard
drinking greedily her bowl of soup. She lived for food, yet, like most
passions which have become exaggerated by concentration out of all
proportion to the fact upon which they depend, the moment of fulfilment
seemed always brief and unsatisfactory after the intensity of
anticipation. To-day the trouble was there were no carrots in the soup,
and this omission reduced her to tears because it had blighted the hopes
of her entire morning.
"An' I'd been hankerin' arter them carrots ever since breakfast," she
whimpered.
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