No sulphurous fume was blazing around the Patriarch’s nose, but he sneezed again and choked himself with a piece of canton-flannel that served him as a handkerchief.
“Hen an’ me was raised on joinin’ farms. From the time we was big enough to gether eggs we was buddies. At school the boy that licked me had to lick both; the boy that was licked be one was licked be both. It was a reg’lar caset o’ David an’ Joshuay all over agin.
“They’s only one thing in the world’ll separate buddies like me an’ him was. A crow-bar won’t do it; a gun won’t; nothin’ won’t but a combination o’ yeller hair an’ dreamy blue eyes an’ pink cheeks. Melissy Flower hed ’em all. But what she done she didn’t do intentional. I didn’t want her without Hen hevin’ her; he didn’t want her without me hevin’ her--so they was a hitch. We used to go over to her house together allus, an’ we’d sing duets to her melodium playin’. He sung tenor an’ I bass. At the eend of each piece she distributed her praise jest equal. ’Hen we wasn’t hevin’ music we’d be on the settee, all three, first him, then her, then me. Ef Hen was so fortnit ez to catch the sparkle o’ her eyes, she’d turn her head my way an’ give me a chancet too.
“Now things went on this way tell one night we was comin’ home from her house together. We reached the covered bridge where the road dewided, one fork goin’ to his placet an’ one to mine. How clear I remembers it!
“‘Henry,’ I sais, lookin’ right inter his eyes--it was moonlight an’ I could almost read his thots, ’Henry, it seems to me like you’ve ben thinkin’ more ’an usual o’ Melissy lately.’
“‘I was thinkin’ the same of you,’ sais he.
“‘You’re right,’ I answers. ‘But I won’t treat no buddy o’ mine mean.’
“We was quiet a piece. Then I sais, ’Henry, ef ever I finds I can’t stand it no longer I’ll tell you.’
“‘An’ ef ever I gits the same way I’ll tell you,’ sais he.
“I s’pose things ’ud ’a’ gone on ez they was fer a good many year hed not a young town felly from up the walley come drivin’ down in slick clothes an’ in a slick buggy. You uns hev all heard the old sayin’ that it ain’t the clothes that makes the man. Ye never heard the proverb that it ain’t the paint that makes the house, did ye? I guess ye didn’t, yit it’s jest ’bout ez sensible. It ain’t the paint that makes the house, but it’s the paint that keeps the boards from rottin’ an’ the hull thing from fallin’ to pieces out o’ pure bein’ ashamed o’ itself. Solerman was the wisest man that ever lived, yit the Bible sais that he allus run to fine raiment. He hed a thousand an’ odd wives an’ knowd well enough that he wouldn’t hev no peace with ’em ef he run ’round in his bare feet an’ overalls. ’Hen the Queen o’ Sheby called on him ye can bet your bottom dollar she didn’t find him settin’ on the throne with a hickory shirt ’thout no collar, an’ his second-best pants held up be binder-twine galluses.”