"
"Then pass it on," replied Mallory, reaching for the jug of cider, which
travelled in a regular orbit from old Adam's right hand round the circle
to the neighbour on his left, who chanced to be Solomon Hatch.
"Speakin' of impiousness," remarked that sour-faced little man, "have
you all heard the tales about Reuben Merryweather's gal sence she's had
her windfall? Why, to see the way she trails her skirt, you'd think
she was the real child of her father." Then rushing hurriedly to
generalization at Abel's entrance, he added in a louder tone--"Ah, it's
a sad pass for things to come to, an' the beginnin' of the end of public
morality, when a gal that's born of a mischance can come to act as if a
man was responsible for her. It ain't nothin' mo' nor less than flyin'
in the face of the law, which reads different, an' if it keeps up,
the women folks will be settin' up the same rights as men to all the
instincts of natur'."
Old Adam--the pride and wonder of the neighbourhood because he could
still walk his half mile with the help of his son and still drink his
share of cider with the help of nobody--bent over the heap of corn
before him, and selecting an ear, divested it of the husks with a
twirling, sleight-of-hand movement.
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