Part 23

“How's that?” inquired Uncle Bart.

“She beareth all things,” chuckled Jed.

“Aaron Boynton was, indeed, a man of most adhesive larnin',” agreed Timothy, who had the reputation of the largest and most unusual vocabulary in Edgewood. “Next to Jacob Cochrane I should say Aaron had more grandeloquence as an orator than any man we've ever had in these parts. It don't seem's if Ivory was goin' to take after his father that way. The little feller, now, is smart's a whip, an' could talk the tail off a brass monkey.”

“Yes, but Rodman ain't no kin to the Boyntons,” Abel reminded him. “He inhails from the other side o' the house.”

“That's so; well, Ivory does, for certain, an' takes after his mother, right enough, for she hain't spoken a dozen words in as many years, I guess. Ivory's got a sight o' book-knowledge, though, an' they do say he could talk Greek an' Latin both, if we had any of 'em in the community to converse with. I've never paid no intention to the dead languages, bein' so ocker-pied with other studies.”

“Why do they call 'em the dead languages, Tim?” asked Rish Bixby.

“Because all them that ever spoke 'em has perished off the face o' the land,” Timothy answered oracularly. “Dead an' gone they be, lock, stock, an' barrel; yet there was a time when Latins an' Crustaceans an' Hebrews an' Prooshians an' Australians an' Simesians was chatterin' away in their own tongues, an' so pow'ful that they was wallopin' the whole earth, you might say.”

“I bet yer they never tried to wallop these here United States,” interpolated Bill Dunham from the dark corner by the molasses hogs-head.

“Is Ivory in here?” The door opened and Rodman Boynton appeared on the threshold.

“No, sonny, Ivory ain't been in this evening,” replied Ezra Simms. “I hope there ain't nothin' the matter over to your house?”

“No, nothing particular,” the boy answered hesitatingly; “only Aunt Boynton don't seem so well as common and I can't find Ivory anywhere.”

“Come along with me; I'll help you look for him an' then I'll go as fur as the lane with yer if we don't find him.” And kindly Rish Bixby took the boy's hand and left the store.

“Mis' Boynton had a spell, I guess!” suggested the storekeeper, peering through the door into the darkness. “'T ain't like Ivory to be out nights and leave her to Rod.”

“She don't have no spells,” said Abel Day. “Uncle Bart sees consid'able of Ivory an' he says his mother is as quiet as a lamb.--Couldn't you git no kind of a certif'cate of Aaron's death out o' that Enfield feller, Peter? Seems's if that poor woman'd oughter be stopped watchin' for a dead man; tuckerin' herself all out, an' keepin' Ivory an' the boy all nerved up.”

“I've told Ivory everything I could gether up in the way of information, and give him the names of the folks in Ohio that had writ back to New Hampshire. I didn't dialate on Aaron's goin's-on in Effingham an' Portsmouth, cause I dassay 't was nothin' but scandal. Them as hates the Cochranites'll never allow there's any good in 'em, whereas I've met some as is servin' the Lord good an' constant, an' indulgin' in no kind of foolishness an' deviltry whatsoever.”

“Speakin' o' Husshons,” said Bill Dunham from his corner, “I remember--”

“We wa'n't alludin' to no Husshons,” retorted Timothy Grant. “We was dealin' with the misfortunes of Aaron Boynton, who never fit valoriously on the field o' battle, but perished out in Ohio of scarlit fever, if what they say in Enfield is true.”

“Tis an easy death,” remarked Bill argumentatively. “Scarlit fever don't seem like nothin' to me! Many's the time I've been close enough to fire at the eyeball of a Husshon, an' run the resk o' bein' blown to smithereens!--calm and cool I alters was, too! Scarlit fever is an easy death from a warrior's p'int o' view!”

“Speakin' of easy death,” continued Timothy, “you know I'm a great one for words, bein' something of a scholard in my small way. Mebbe you noticed that Elder Boone used a strange word in his sermon last Sunday? Now an' then, when there's too many yawnin' to once in the congregation, Parson'll out with a reg'lar jaw-breaker to wake 'em up. The word as near as I could ketch it was 'youthinasia.' I kep' holt of it till noontime an' then I run home an' looked through all the y's in the dictionary without findin' it. Mebbe it's Hebrew, I thinks, for Hebrew's like his mother's tongue to Parson, so I went right up to him at afternoon meetin' an' says to him: 'What's the exact meanin' of “youthinasia”? There ain't no sech word in the Y's in my Webster,' says I. 'Look in the E's, Timothy; “euthanasia”' says he, 'means easy death'; an' now, don't it beat all that Bill Dunham should have brought that expression of 'easy death' into this evenin's talk?”

“I know youth an' I know Ashy,” said Abel Day, “but blessed if I know why they should mean easy death when they yoke 'em together.” “That's because you ain't never paid no 'tention to entomology,” said Timothy. “Aaron Boynton was master o' more 'ologies than you could shake a stick at, but he used to say I beat him on entomology. Words air cur'ous things sometimes, as I know, hevin' had consid'able leisure time to read when I was joggin' 'bout the country an' bein' brought into contack with men o' learnin'. The way I worked it out, not wishin' to ask Parson any more questions, bein' something of a scholard myself, is this: The youth in Ashy is a peculiar kind o' youth, 'n' their religion disposes 'em to lay no kind o' stress on huming life. When anything goes wrong with 'em an' they get a set-back in war, or business, or affairs with women-folks, they want to die right off; so they take a sword an' stan' it straight up wherever they happen to be, in the shed or the barn, or the henhouse, an' they p'int the sharp end right to their waist-line, where the bowels an' other vital organisms is lowcated; an' then they fall on to it. It runs 'em right through to the back an' kills 'em like a shot, and that's the way I cal'late the youth in Ashy dies, if my entomology is correct, as it gen'ally is.”

“Don't seem an easy death to me,” argued Okra, “but I ain't no scholard. What college did thou attend to, Tim?”

“I don't hold no diaploma,” responded Timothy, “though I attended to Wareham Academy quite a spell, the same time as your sister was goin' to Wareham Seminary where eddication is still bein' disseminated though of an awful poor kind, compared to the old times.”

“It's live an' larn,” said the storekeeper respectfully. “I never thought of a Seminary bein' a place of dissemination before, but you can see the two words is near kin.”

“You can't alters tell by the sound,” said Timothy instructively. “Sometimes two words'll start from the same root, an' branch out diff'rent, like 'critter' an' 'hypocritter.' A 'hypocritter' must natcherally start by bein' a 'critter,' but a critter ain't obliged to be a 'hypocritter' 'thout he wants to.”

“I should hope not,” interpolated Abel Day, piously. “Entomology must be an awful interest-in' study, though I never thought of observin' words myself, kept to avoid vulgar language an' profanity.”

“Husshon's a cur'ous word for a man,” inter-jected Bill Dunham with a last despairing effort. “I remember seein' a Husshon once that--”

“Perhaps you ain't one to observe closely, Abel,” said Timothy, not taking note of any interruption, simply using the time to direct a stream of tobacco juice to an incredible distance, but landing it neatly in the exact spot he had intended. “It's a trade by itself, you might say, observin' is, an' there's another sing'lar corraption! The Whigs in foreign parts, so they say, build stone towers to observe the evil machinations of the Tories, an' so the word 'observatory' come into general use! All entomology; nothin' but entomology.”

“I don't see where in thunder you picked up so much larnin', Timothy!” It was Abel Day's exclamation, but every one agreed with him.