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 as I say, Hamenses wife had invited him there and let 'em grow up together like a mornin' glory vine round the pillow of a porch, never sayin' a word aginst their bein' together, never noticin' that under the divine spring of youth and love her heart's tendrils wuz puttin' out livin' branches and twinin' round the pillow of his steadfast devotion, jest as firmly and jest as onbeknown to her as the vines she had planted wuz twinin' round their supports in the spring and summer of the year.

She waited, Tamer did, till the heart's tendrils wuz wropped so completely round the heart of Tom Willis that nothin' but death could ontwine 'em (and I don't believe that death can, nor Josiah don't). But, howsumever, at this time Tamer Ann stepped in and begun to tear 'em off. Just because Tom wuz poor, or that is poor in money, for he wuz rich in all the qualities that go to make a young man wealthy in himself, and there wuzn't any doubt that he would be rich in money in a few years the way he wuz going on now. But his family wuz poor but pious, and Von Crank wuz rich. And Tamer begun to tell me the very next mornin' after I got there what a great family he had descended from.

And I sez, "How big!"

And she sez, "One of the greatest families in the State."

"Well," sez I, "that don't raise him in my estimation any. There is a man in Loontown that has had thirty-two children by his different wives, but he is a shiftless creeter, and so are most of his children."

Sez she, "I don't mean that; I mean an old family."

"How old?" sez I calmly. And I went on, "There is a man in Spoon Settlement that has got a grandchild