The boys had used it all up on woodchucks, an' the' wa'n't nothin' fer it but to git some more down to the village, an', as he had some more things to git, he hitched up 'long in the forenoon an' drove down.' At this," said David, "one of the ladies, wife to the judge, name o' Pomfort, spoke up an' says, 'Did he leave that poor creature to suffer all that time?
Couldn't it have been put out of it's misery some other way ?' "'Wa'al marm,' I says, 'I never happened to know but one feller that set out to kill one o' them things with a club, an' _he_ put in most o' _his_ time fer a week or two up in the woods _hatin'_ himself,' I says.
'He didn't mingle in gen'ral soci'ty, an' in fact,' I says, 'he had the hull road to himself, as ye might say, fer a putty consid'able spell.'" John threw back his head and laughed.

"Did she say any more ?" he asked.
"No," said David with a chuckle.

"All the men set up a great laugh, an' she colored up in a kind of huff at fust, an' then she begun to laugh too, an' then one o' the waiter fellers put somethin' down in front of me an' I went eatin' agin.

But putty soon Price, he says, 'Come,' he says, 'Harum, ain't you goin' on?
How about that powder ?' "'Wa'al,' I says, 'mebbe we had ought to put that critter out of his misery.

The elder went down an' bought a pound o' powder an' had it done up in a brown paper bundle, an' put it with his other stuff in the bottom of his dem'crat wagin; but it come on to rain some while he was ridin' back, an' the stuff got more or less wet, an' so when he got home he spread it out in a dishpan an' put it under the kitchen stove to dry, an' thinkin' that it wa'n't dryin' fast enough, I s'pose, made out to assist Nature, as the sayin' is, by stirrin' on't up with the kitchin poker.