Page:Wiggin--Ladies-in-waiting.djvu/144

  house—you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, Susan!”

“’Pends on how old the dog is, an’ what kind o’ tricks you want to teach him,” Susan replied. “It’d be a queer dog that would n’t take to a clean kennel, or three good meals a day ’stead o’ starvation vittles. Amanda says it may be a kind of a turnin’-point in Caleb’s life, an’ she thinks we’d ought to encourage him a little.”

“Ain’t I encouragin’ him by sleepin’ on his settin’-room lounge every night an’ givin’ him medicine every two hours by the alarm clock? I’ve got my own day’s work to do; when would I paint his kitchen, I’d like to know?”

“We thought probably you’d like to do it nights,” suggested his wife timidly.

“Saul in Tarsus! Don’t that beat the devil?” ejaculated William. “Caleb Kimball ain’t done a good day’s work for years, an’ I’m to set up nights paintin’ his kitchen!” Nevertheless the magnificent impertinence of the idea so paralyzed his will that