MINERVA

ody see her go. When I struck Susan and the hare-lip, I says: “What’s the name of them people over on t’other side of the river that you all goes to see sometimes?” They says: “There’s several; but it’s the Proctors, mainly.” “That’s the name,” I says; “I most forgot it. Well, Miss Mary Jane she told me to tell you she’s gone over there in a dreadful hurry—one of them’s sick.” “Which one?” “I don’t know; leastways, I kinder forget; but I thinks it’s—” “Sakes alive, I hope it ain’t _Hanner?_” “I’m sorry to say it,” I says, “but Hanner’s the very one.” “My goodness, and she so well only last week! Is she took bad?” “It ain’t no name for it. They set up with her all night, Miss Mary Jane said, and they don’t think she’ll last many hours.” “Only think of that, now! What’s the matter with her?” I couldn’t think of anything reasonable, right off that way, so I says: “Mumps.” “Mumps your granny! They don’t set up with people that’s got the mumps.” “They don’t, don’t they? You better bet they do with _these_ mumps. These mumps is different. It’s a new kind, Miss Mary Jane said.” “How’s it a new kind?” “Because it’s mixed up with other things.” “What other things?” “Well, measles, and whooping-cough, and erysiplas, and consumption, and yaller janders, and brain-fever, and I don’t know what all.” “My land! And they call it the _mumps?_” “That’s what Miss Mary Jane said.” “Well, what in the nation do they call it the _mumps_ for?” “Why, because it _is_ the mumps. That’s what it starts with.” “Well, ther’ ain’t no sense in it. A body might stump his toe, and take pison, and fall down the well, and break his neck, and bust his brains out, and somebody come along and ask what killed him, and some numskull up and say, ‘Why, he stumped his _toe_.’ Would ther’ be any sense in that? _No_. And ther’ ain’t no sense in _this_, nuther. Is it ketching?” “Is it _ketching?_ Why, how you talk. Is a _harrow_ catching—in the dark? If you don’t hitch on to one tooth, you’re bound to on another, ain’t you? And you can’t get away with that tooth without fetching the whole harrow along, can you? Well, these kind of mumps is a kind of a harrow, as you may say—and it ain’t no slouch of a harrow, nuther, you come to get it hitched on good.” “Well, it’s awful, _I_ think,” says the hare-lip. “I’ll go to Uncle Harvey and—” “Oh, yes,” I says, “I _would_. Of _course_ I would. I wouldn’t lose no time.” “Well, why wouldn’t you?” “Just look at it a minute, and maybe you can see. Hain’t your uncles obleegd to get along home to England as fast as they can? And do you reckon they’d be mean enough to go off and leave you to go all that journey by yourselves? _You_ know they’ll wait for you. So fur, so good. Your uncle Harvey’s a preacher, ain’t he? Very well, then; is a _preacher_ going to deceive a steamboat clerk? is he going to deceive a _ship clerk?_—so as to get them to let Miss Mary Jane go aboard? Now _you_ know he ain’t. What _will_ he do, then? Why, he’ll say, ‘It’s a great pity, but my church matters has got to get along the best way they can; for my niece has been exposed to the dreadful pluribus-unum mumps, and so it’s my bounden duty to set down here and wait the three months it takes to show on her if she’s got it.’ But never mind, if you think it’s best to tell your uncle Harvey—” “Shucks, and stay fooling around here when we could all be having go