away, but he were too wide-awake. Such a big hard one you never did

see!"

"A rope's end for me, well turned twenty years of age!" cried Daniel,

with a laugh, but not a merry one; "two can play at that game, mother.

I'll not be ropes ended by nobody."

"Then you'll be rope-noosed;" the poor mother fell into the settle, away

from the fire-light, and put both hands over her eyes, to shut out the

spectacle of Dan dangling; "or else your father will be, for you. Ever

since the Romans, Dan, there have been Tugwells, and respected ten times

more than they was. Oh do 'e, do 'e think; and not bring us all to the

grave, and then the gallows! Why I can mind the time, no more agone than

last Sunday, when you used to lie here in the hollow of my arm, without

a stitch of clothes on, and kind people was tempted to smack you in

pleasure, because you did stick out so prettily. For a better-formed

baby there never was seen, nor a finer-tempered one, when he had his

way. And the many nights I walked the floor with you, Dan, when your

first tooth was coming through, the size of a horse-radish, and your

father most wonderful to put up with my coo to you, when he had not had

a night in bed for nigh three weeks--oh, Dan, do 'e think of things as

consarneth your homer life, and things as is above all reason; and let

they blessed politics go home to them as trades in them."

Mrs. Tugwell's tender recollections had given her a pain in the part

where Dan was nursed, and driven her out of true logical course; but she

came back to it, before Dan had time to finish the interesting pictures

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