With his fag-hook Bettesworth chopped of if a mighty dandelion, and held it up to show me.

“There's a feller!” he said, admiringly.

“If only one were a rabbit, now …”

“Ah! I tells our boy he might git bushels of 'em if he'd a mind to. Make his old doe fat. He got a rare big white doe wi' pink eyes.”

“Ugly things, to my mind.”

“I don't think much of 'em. 'R else I've kep' rabbits; but mostly to please the ol' gal.”

The old gal has a fancy for pets. After her husband has killed the fatted pig, he is sure to say, “I reckon I must git another. The ol' gal don't seem 'appy now he's gone. She says she ain't got nothin' to feed now, on'y the cat.”

At such times the cat comes in for much kindness. Said the old man one day, glancing piously up at the clouds, “I thought my cat was gwine to 'ave some more kits, a week or two ago. But I reckon 't was on'y fat. She gorged herself so, time as we killed the pig. …” (Naturally the cat follows the mistress about.) “I tells my wife she'll lose her—a dog 'll git her—some o' these times. She follered her all over to the post-office” (say a quarter of a mile) “t'other day.