Dixie bought a top buggy 'n' a sorrel hoss, 'n' they was on the road
most o' the time when he wa'n't to work; 'n' when he was,
she 'd go with Lem Simmons, 'n' Dixie none the wiser.
Mis Maddox was lookin' up a new husband jest then, so 't she
didn't interfere"--

"She was the same kind o' goods, anyhow," interpolated Ob Tarbox.

"Yes, she was one of them women folks that air so light-minded
you can't anchor 'em down with a sewin'-machine, nor a dishpan,
nor a husband 'n' young ones, nor no namable kind of a thing;
the least wind blows 'em here 'n' blows 'em there, like dandelion puffs.
As time went on, the widder got herself a beau now 'n' then;
but as fast as she hooked 'em, Fiddy up 'n' took 'em away from her.
You see she 'd gethered in most of her husbands afore Fiddy was old
enough to hev her finger in the pie; but she cut her eye-teeth early,
Fiddy did, 'n' there wa'n't no kind of a feller come to set up
with the widder but she 'd everlastin'ly grab him, if she hed
any use fer him, 'n' then there 'd be Hail Columby, I tell yer.
But Dixie, he was 's blind 's a bat 'n' deef 's a post. He could
n't see nothin' but Fiddy, 'n' he couldn't see her very plain."

"He hed warnin's enough," put in Pitt Packard, though Jabe Slocum
never needed any assistance in spinning a yarn.

"Warnin's! I should think he hed. The Seventh Day Baptist
minister went so fur as to preach at him. 'The Apostle Paul gin heed,'
was the text. 'Why did he gin heed?' says he. 'Because he heerd.
If he hadn't 'a' heerd, he couldn't 'a' gin heed, 'n' 't wouldn't 'a' done
him no good to 'a' heerd 'thout he gin heed!' Wall, it helped consid'ble