Oh, I have been so selfish!"
"Sshh! sshh! You ain't; you couldn't be if you tried. And,
besides, I was as much to blame as you. I agreed that 'twas the
best thing to do."
"Oh," reproachfully, "how can you say that? You know you were
opposed to it always. You only say it because you think it will
comfort me. It isn't true."
"Eh? Now--now, don't talk so. Please don't. If you keep on
talkin' that way I'll do somethin' desperate, start to make a
johnny cake out of sawdust, same as I did yesterday mornin', or
somethin' else crazy."
"Jed!"
"It's true, that about the johnny cake. I came pretty nigh doin'
that very thing. I bought a five-pound bag of corn meal yesterday
and fetched it home from the store all done up in a nice neat
bundle. Comin' through the shop here I had it under my arm, and--
hum--er--well, to anybody else it couldn't have happened, but,
bein' Jed Shavin's Winslow, I was luggin' the thing with the top of
the bag underneath. I got about abreast of the lathe there when
the string came off and in less'n two thirds of a shake all I had
under my arm was the bag; the meal was on the floor--what wasn't in
my coat pocket and stuck to my clothes and so on. I fetched the
water bucket and started to salvage what I could of the cargo.
Pretty soon I had, as nigh as I could reckon it, about fourteen
pound out of the five scooped up and in the bucket.
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