Page:The Overland Monthly, Jan-June 1894.djvu/193

1894.] his boyhood, had designated as "fried cakes."

Jake followed with the basket of apples. These he plumped upon the hearth-stone with such clumsy decision that a big "glory-mundy," leaping from its place, knocked out a ruddy wine-sap, and both went roqueting into the gleaming ashes under the andirons, from whence they were rescued by the cruiser's alpenstock.

, [resumed Old Teeters, when the cider had been freely circulated in earthen mugs, and each guest had been duly urged to "make himself at home" with "glory-mundys" and wine-saps and fried cakes,] I never bothered much 'bout hered'ty myself when I was your age. Fact is, I didn't rightly know 's thar was sech a thing leastways not by that name. "Tuk arter," we used ter name it in them days. I knowed what folks was aimin' at when they 'lowed one kid tuk arter 'is paw, an' 'nother arter 'is maw, or further back yit arter a gran'paw 'r uncle 'r some sech ancestor; an' I knowed same thing was true of animals, but I never once dreamt its bein' a science, an' havin' a high-falutin' name. But when we lived in Cal'forny, my woman she jined a female temp'rance s'ciety, 'ith a long string o' cap'tal letters fer its name, an' they hed supyrintendents fer everything under the light of the shinin' sun, an' they 'pinted her Supyrintendent of Hered'ty.

She come home clean dumb-founded,—fer she hed n't no more idee what hered'ty wuz than the man in the moon. But my woman 's clear grit, I tell you, ef she ain't 's flashy as some, an' she did n't perpose to flunk, nor let no one know she was ign'rant. So she ast me ef I knowed it, an' I had to own up as 't was new to my v'cab'ly likewise, an' she sez, kind o' down in the mouth,—

"Well, I 'm in a purty fix, but I 've done 'xcepted the awfice, 'n I 'm bound to hang on to 't some way."

She 'n I went ter skule together down in Maine, an' I used ter help 'er thru all the hard sums, an' I jest 'lowed 's I was too old to go back on 'er now, so I borrered a dicksonary o' the schoolmarster an' set out on a hunt fer thet thar name. She had her 'pintment writ out on paper, so we could get the spellin' of it all solid, an' I jest opened the gret book an' went in. I 'll be derned ef I would n't ruther hunt deer with a brass band a playin' in the woods, than try to run down a word in that mixed-up mess in the dicksonary! But I hung on tell I bagged my game; but lawzee, when I got it 't was like pickin' up a fightin' haige-hawg barehanded, fer the def'nition bristled out with a heap more big words, and not a one of 'em did I un'erstan' more'n hered'ty itself.

Then my woman, she says, "Wa'al, we 've got to look them up, too, an' the sooner we set about it the quicker we 'll be thru."

So I put in all my noon-spells, an' she throwed in her spar minnits, an' I wore my socks 'ithout darnin' an' the kids ran ragged an' dirty a spell, but at las' we run' it down, an' sensed what it wuz.

I was plumb mad, you bet, to fine out arter all thet hard work, that every earthly thing it meant was jest "takin' arter."

Some way, though, it had got so kind o' set in my head 't I kep' on studyin' 'bout it in spite of myself, an' when a colt showed some uncommon kink in its dispersition, or the calf of a plumb gentle cow tuk to kickin' over 'ts milk when 't was bein' broke, fust I knowed I'd be a studyin' what critter on the ranch it tuk back arter. Then the old woman, she sent off an' got some trac's on Hered'ty,—leaflets I b'lieve she named 'em,—but I did n't take much stock in them things. They was too all-fired one-sided,—too down on beer 'n cider 'n sich,—even wanted to make out a case agin terbacker.