His agony was so evident that Blossom, observing it in the midst of her sentimental disturbances, remarked affectionately that he looked as if he "were tired to death." "I've got the church fidgets in my legs," he said.

"I reckon I'll get into my everyday suit an' finish that piece of ploughin'.

Are you goin' back to the mill, Abel ?" "No, I've shut down for the day," Abel replied.

The funeral had turned his mind into its Sunday habit of thought and he was determined that his present state of misery should extend reverently until the evening.

From some instinct, which he did not attempt to explain, it appeared more respectful to Reuben to sit idle for the rest of the day than to follow Abner's example and go out and finish his work.
The next morning he decided to write Molly a letter, and as the ordinary paper his mother kept at the house seemed unsuitable for delivery at Jordan's Journey, he walked down to the store to purchase a few sheets from Mrs.Bottoms.
"Nothing common and cheap," he said, "but the very best you have in the store--such as they use in the city." Suspecting his purpose, she produced at once a turquoise coloured box, from which she extracted an envelope that was ornamented on the flap with a white dove holding a true lover's knot in his beak.
"This is the very thing you're lookin' for," she observed, in the tone of one who is conscious of being an authority in that sphere to which God has called her, "the latest style in Applegate." Picking up the envelope he held it doubtfully toward the light in the doorway.
"Are you sure it isn't a little--a little loud ?" he inquired wistfully.
"Loud?
Dear me, to think of you callin' a dove an' a blue ribbon bow loud! Ain't that jest like a man?
They can't be expected to have taste in sech matters.