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LIFE AMONG THE LOWLY 485
" I wish, friend, thee would leave off cursing and swearing, and think upon thy ways."
" What the devil," said Tom, " should I think of them for ? Last thing ever / want to think of, — hang it all!' And Tom flounced over, untucking and disarranging everything, in a manner frightful to behold.
" That fellow and gal are here, I s'pose," said he, sullenly, after a pause.
" They are so," said Dorcas.
"They 'd better be off up to the lake," said Tom; "the quicker the better."
" Probably they will do so," said Aunt Dorcas, knitting peacefully.
" And hark ye," said Tom ; "we 've got correspondents in Sandusky that watch the boats for us. I don't care if I tell, now. I hope they will get away, just to spite Marks, — the cursed puppy! — d—n him! "
" Thomas ! " said Dorcas.
" I tell you, granny, if you bottle a fellow up too tight, I shall split," said Tom. " But about the gal, — tell 'em to dress her up some way, so's to alter her. Her description 's out in Sandusky."
"We will attend to that matter," said Dorcas, with characteristic composure.
As we at this place take leave of Tom Loker, we may as well say, that, having lain three weeks at the Quaker dwelling, sick with a rheumatic fever, which set in, in company with his other afflictions, Tom arose from his bed a somewhat sadder and wiser man; and, in place of slave-catching, betook himself to life in one of the new settlements, where his talents developed themselves more happily in trapping bears, wolves, and other inhabitants of the forest, in which he made himself quite a name in the land. Tom always spoke reverently of the Quakers. "Nice people," he would say; "wanted to convert me, but could n't come it, exactly. But, tell ye wdiat, stranger, they do fix up a sick fellow first-rate, — no mistake. Make jist the tallest kind o' broth and knick-knacks." |
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