"I mean," he said, striving to collect his thoughts, "that there is something more than property"--but how should he go on? Could he speak of the family relation, then and there? Of honor in the community, the respect of his neighbors, without seeming to refer to the brand upon his and his mother's name? No; of none of these things. With sudden energy, he turned upon himself, and continued:
"I shall not feel satisfied until I am cured of my own impatience--until I can better control my temper, and get the weeds and rocks and stumps out of myself as well as out of my farm."
"Then you've got a job!" Mark laughed. "I think your fields are pretty tolerable clean, what I've seen of 'em. Nobody can say they're not well fenced in. Why, compared with you, I'm an open common, like the Wastelands, down on Whitely Creek, and everybody's cattle run over me!"
Mark's thoughtlessness was as good as tact. They all laughed heartily at his odd continuation of the simile, and Martha hastened to say:
"For my part, I don't think you are quite such an open common, Mark, or Gilbert so well fenced in. But even if you are, a great many things may be hidden in a clearing, and some people are tall enough to look over a high hedge. Betsy Lavender says some men tell all about themselves without saying a word, while others talk till Doomsday and tell nothing."
"And tell nothing," gravely repeated Mark, whereat no one could repress a smile, and Sally laughed outright.
Mary Potter had not mingled much in the society of Kennett, and did not know that this imitation of good Miss Betsy was a very common thing, and had long ceased to mean any harm. It annoyed her, and she felt it her duty to say a word for her friend.
"There is not a better or kinder-hearted woman in the county," she said, "than just Betsy Lavender. With all her odd ways of speech, she talks the best of sense and wisdom, and I don't know who I'd sooner take for a guide in times of trouble."
"You could not give Betsy a higher place than she deserves," Martha answered. "We all esteem her as a dear friend, and as the best helper where help is needed. She has been almost a mother to me."
Sally felt rebuked, and exclaimed tearfully, with her usual impetuous candor,--"Now you know I meant no harm; it was all Mark's doing!"