If I don't push
in and help him, he'll not help himself. As for Margaret Cooper,
dang it, I'll court her for him myself. If he's afraid to pop the
question, I ain't; though I'll have to be mighty careful about
the words I use, or she'll be thinking I come on my own hook; and
that would be a mighty scary sort of business all round the house.
Then this stranger. If anybody can look through a stranger here in
Charlemont, I reckon I'm that man. I suspect him already. I think
he's after no good with his great religioning; and I'll tie such
a pair of eyes to his heels, that his understanding will never be
entirely out of my sight. I'll find him out if anybody can. But
I won't lick him till I do. That wouldn't be altogether right,
considering he's to be a parson, though I doubt he'll never make
one."
And thus, with a head filled with cares of a fashion altogether
new, the sturdy young Kentuckian moved homeward with a degree of
abstraction in his countenance which was not among the smallest
wonders of the day and place in the estimation of his friends and
neighbors.
Meanwhile, the work of mischief was in full progress.
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