The' was a number o' verses which carried 'em through the rest o' the week, an' ended up in a case of 'sault an' battery, I rec'lect, but I don't remember jest how.
Somethin' we ben sayin' put the thing into my head, I guess." "I should like to hear the rest of it," said John, smiling.
David made no reply to this, and seemed to be turning something over in his mind.

At last he said: "Mebbe Polly's told ye that I'm a wid'wer." John admitted that Mrs.Bixbee had said as much as that.
"Yes, sir," said David, "I'm a wid'wer of long standin'." No appropriate comment suggesting itself to his listener, none was made.
"I hain't never cared to say much about it to Polly," he remarked, "though fer that matter Jim Bixbee, f'm all accounts, was about as poor a shack as ever was turned out, I guess, an'-- " John took advantage of the slight hesitation to interpose against what he apprehended might be a lengthy digression on the subject of the deceased Bixbee by saying: "You were quite a young fellow when you were married, I infer." "Two or three years younger 'n you be, I guess," said David, looking at him, "an' a putty green colt too in some ways," he added, handing over the reins and whip while he got out his silver tobacco box and helped himself to a liberal portion of its contents.

It was plain that he was in the mood for personal reminiscences.
"As I look back on't now," he began, "it kind o' seems as if it must 'a' ben some other feller, an' yet I remember it all putty dum'd well too--all but one thing, an' that the biggist part on't, an' that is how I ever come to git married at all.

She was a widdo' at the time, an' kep' the boardin' house where I was livin'.

It was up to Syrchester.