"You have? What are they? I never heard of them."
"Brains, gall, an’ luck. They’ve never failed me yit, an’ I guess they won’t now."
"H’m," and Mrs. Andrews tossed her head in disgust. "I know you’ve got plenty of gall, but as for brains and luck, well, I have my serious doubts."
"Yes, I guess ye’r right, Tildy. I reckon I had a lot of gall when I asked ye to marry me. But as fer brains an’ luck, well I don’t know. Gid-dap, Jerry."
To these words Mrs. Andrews made no reply. Silence reigned for a few minutes, save for the rattle of the carriage and the beat of the horse’s feet upon the road. Abner grew restless. He shifted uneasily in his seat, and coughed. Then he began to whistle, a sure sign of the agitated state of his mind. The whistle soon gave place to the humming of the only piece he knew:
"When Bill Larkins made his money, Piled it up in heaps galore, Dam old fool he wasn’t happy, ’Cause he always wanted more."
Even this didn’t have the desired effect. He could stand anything from his wife but dead silence. That alone affected him.
"Well, what is it? I should think you’d be ashamed to speak to me after such insulting words."
"Didn’t Ikey Dimock squirm when I landed on him? Ho, ho!"
"And I squirmed, too, Abner. I never felt so ashamed of anything in all my life."
"But ye didn’t squirm like Ikey, though, Tildy. My, it tickled me all to pieces to give him that jolt. Why, I knew Ikey when he used to pick pin-feathers off his mother’s chickens when she was gittin’ ’em ready fer market. He wasn’ sich a bad critter then. But since he got hitched to that high-flyer, an’ set up in the hardware bizness, ye can’t touch him with a ten-foot pole. But I made him squirm. Ho, ho! G’long, Jerry."
"Maybe you’ll squirm, Abner, when they come for that money. Then it won’t be such fun. I wonder what Jess’ll say. She’s coming home to-morrow, remember."
"Jess! Skiddy-me-shins! I fergot all about her!"
"You certainly did. And you must have forgotten that it took every cent we could make and scrape together to put her through the Seminary. What will she say and think when she finds out what you have done?"
"Don’t let’s tell her, Tildy. She needn’t know anythin’ about it."
"H’m, that’s easier said than done. You’ll be the first one to tell her, Abner, when you meet her in the morning at the station."