How did the school-ma’am take it? Well, it was this way. After the cuttin’ Abe didn’t show up for a few days, till the inflammation got down and he’d had some practice handlin’ his eyes, so to speak. He just kept himself to himself, enjoying himself. He’d go around doin’ the chores, singing so you could hear him a mile. He was always great on singin’, Abe was, though ashamed to go to singin’-school with the rest. Then, when the poor boy began to feel like other folks, he went right over to where school-ma’am happened to be boardin’ round, and walked right up to her and took her by both hands, and looked her straight in the face, and said:
Well, she kind of smiled and blushed, and then the corners of her mouth pulled down, and she pulled one hand away, and--if you believe me--that was the third time that girl cried that season, to my certain knowledge--and all for nothin’ either time!
What did she say? Why, she just said she’d have to begin all over again to get acquainted with Abe. But Ephe’s nose was out of joint, and Ephe knowed it as well as anybody, Ephe did. It was Abe’s eyes to Ephe’s nose.
Married? Oh, yes, of course; and lived on the farm as long as the old folks lived, and afterwards, too; Ephe staying right along, like the fool he always had been. That feller never did have as much sense as a last year’s bird’s nest.
Alive yet? Abe? Well, no. Might have been if it hadn’t been for Shiloh. When the war broke out Abe thought he’d ought to go, old as he was, so he went into the Sixth. Maybe you’ve seen a book written about the captain of Company K of the Sixth. It was Company K he went into--him and Ephe. And he was killed at Shiloh--just as it always seems to happen. He got killed, and his worthless brother come home. Folks thought Ephe would have liked to marry the widow, but, Lord! she never had no such an idea! Such bait as he was compared to his brother. She never chirked up, to speak of, and now she’s dead too, and Ephe he just toddles round, taking care of the children--kind of a he dry-nurse; that’s about all he ever was good for, anyhow.
My name? Oh, my name’s Ephraim--Ephe they call me, for short; Ephe Dodge. Abe was my brother.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of McClure's Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 6, November 1893, by Various