that knows its own complaints 'thout goin' to a doctor."

"Ain't yer scared fer fear it'll start yer growth, Laigs?" asked little
Brad Gibson, looking at Jabe's tremendous length of limb and foot.
"Say, how do yer git them feet o' yourn uphill? Do yer start one ahead,
'n' side-track the other?"

The tree rang with the laughter evoked by this sally,
but the man from Tennessee never smiled.

Jabe Slocum's imperturbable good humor was not shaken in the very least
by these personal remarks. "If I thought 't was a good growin'
medicine, I'd recommend it to your folks, Brad," he replied cheerfully.
"Your mother says you boys air all so short that when you're diggin'
potatoes, yer can't see her shake the dinner rag 'thout gittin'
up 'n' standing on the potato hills! If I was a sinikitin feller like you,
I wouldn't hector folks that had made out to grow some."

"Speakin' o' growin'," said Steve Webster, "who do you guess
I seen in Boston, when I was workin' there? That tall Swatkins
girl from the Duck Pond, the one that married Dan Robinson.
It was one Sunday, in the Catholic meetin'-house. I'd allers wanted
to go to a Catholic meetin', an' I declare it's about the solemnest
one there is. I mistrusted I was goin' to everlastin'ly giggle,
but I tell yer I was the awedest cutter yer ever see.
But anyway, the Swatkins girl--or Mis' Robinson, she is now--
was there as large as life in the next pew to me, jabberin'
Latin, pawin' beads, gettin' up 'n' kneelin' down, 'n' crossin'
herself north, south, east, 'n' west, with the best of 'em. Poor Dan!
'Grinnin' Dan,' we used to call him. Well, he don't grin nowadays.