"I can't stand many more of these times when I put my foot down,"
he thought, "they're too weakening!"
But he need not have feared. There was a good supper under the
mosquito netting on the table, and, most unusual luxury, a pot of hot tea.
Mrs. Todd had gone to bed and left him a pot of tea!
Which was the more eloquent apology!
Jerry never referred to the lady in green, then or afterwards;
he was willing to let well enough alone; but whenever his spouse
passed a certain line, which, being a Stover of Scarboro,
she was likely to do about once in six months, he had only to summon
his recreant courage and glance meaningly behind the kitchen door,
where the birch broom hung on a nail. It was a simple remedy to
outward appearances, but made his declining years more comfortable.
I can hardly believe that he ever took Pel Frost into his confidence,
but Pel certainly was never more interesting to the loafers'
bench than when he told the story of the eventful trip of the Midnight
Cry and "the breaking in of the Widder Bixby."
NOTES:
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