the likeliest heifers that was ever raised in old Stoddard, everybody said that knowed her. She could heft a barâl of flour as easy as I can flirt a flapjack. And spin? Donât mention it! Independent? Humph! When Sile Hawkins come a browsing around her, she let him know that for all his tin he couldnât trot in harness alongside of
her.
You see, Sile Hawkins wasâno, it warnât Sile Hawkins, after allâit was a galoot by the name of FilkinsâI disremember his first name; but he
was
a stumpâcome into praâr meeting drunk, one night, hooraying for Nixon, becuz he thought it was a primary; and old deacon Ferguson up and scooted him through the window and he lit on old Miss Jeffersonâs head, poor old filly. She was a good soulâhad a glass eye and used to lend it to old Miss Wagner, that hadnât any, to receive company in; it warnât big enough, and when Miss Wagner warnât noticing, it would get twisted around in the socket, and look up, maybe, or out to one side, and every which way, while tâ other one was looking as straight ahead as a spyglass. Grown people didnât mind it, but it most always made the children cry, it was so sort of scary. She tried packing it in raw cotton, but it wouldnât work, somehowâthe cotton would get loose and stick out and look so kind of awful that the children couldnât stand it no way. She was always dropping it out, and turning up her old deadlight on the company empty, and making them oncomfortable, becuz
she
never could tell when it hopped out, being blind on that side, yon see. So somebody would have to hunch her and say, âYour game eye has fetched loose, Miss Wagner dearââand then all of them would have to sit and wait till she jammed it in againâwrong side before, as a general thing, and green as a birdâs egg, being a bashful cretur and easy sot back before company. But being wrong side before warnât much difference, anyway, becuz her own eye was sky-blue and the glass one was yaller on the front side, so whichever way she turned it it didnât match nohow. Old Miss Wagner was considerable on the borrow, she was. When she had a quilting, or Dorcas Sâiety at her house she genâally borrowed Miss Higginsâs wooden leg to stump around on; it was considerable shorter than her other pin, but much
she
minded that. She said she couldnât abide crutches when she had company, becuz they were so slow; said when she had company and things had to be done, she wanted to get up and hump herself. She was as bald as a jug, and so she used to borrow Miss Jacopsâs wigâMiss Jacops was the coffin-peddlerâs wifeâa ratty old buzzard, he was, that used to go roosting around where people was sick, waiting for âem; and there that old rip would sit all day, in the shade, on a coffin that he judged would fit the canâidate; and if it was a slow customer and kind of uncertain, heâd fetch his rations and a blanket along and sleep in the coffin nights. He was anchored out that way, in frosty weather, for about three weeks, once, before old Robbinsâs place, waiting for him; and after that, for as much as two years, Jacops was not on speaking terms with the old man, on account of his disappâinting him. He got one of his feet froze, and lost money, too, becuz old Robbins took a favorable turn and got well. The next time Robbins got sick, Jacops tried to make up with him, and varnished up the same old coffin and fetched it along; but old Robbins was too many for him; he had him in, and âpeared to be powerful weak; he bought the coffin for ten dollars and Jacops was to pay it back and twenty-five more besides if Robbins didnât like the coffin after heâd tried it. And then Robbins died, and at the funeral he bursted off the lid and riz up in his shroud and told the parson to let up on the performances, becuz he could
not
stand such a coffin