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 "Don't know's I could tell you, neighbor, I kind o' fancied the ones with the snappin' black eyes. But I ruther guess some other kind would ha' done's well, when it come to the pint."

Enoch raised his eyebrows inquiringly.

"Wouldn't ary one on 'em hev you?" he asked.

"Never asked 'em," was the reply. "It was this way," Amberley went on, gathering himself together for the unaccustomed effort of expounding a situation. "I never seemed to feel to hev gumption enough to raise a family."

Enoch's countenance took on a judicial look. "Yet you've got a good eddication," he remarked, after thoughtful consideration of the case. "You've got book larnin' enough to make your way."

"Wall, yes; the eddication's stayed by me. I ruther guess 't was the gumption that got knocked out. That was at Antietam."

"Didn't know you was in the war," Enoch exclaimed, with a visible accession of respect. "Was you hit?"

"Wall, yes; in the head. I wa'n't much more 'n a youngster, and when they let me loose the doctors said I was good's new; 'n