"Come naow, father," Submit expostulated, "tain't likely she's got
nothin poor nuff fer sech doins. Ez if this ere wuz Miss Edwards' bes
gaown. Yew've got a sight better'n this, hain't yew?"
Desire smiled vaguely. Meanwhile the husking had been pretty much
suspended, the huskers either staring in vacant, open mouthedness at
Desire, or communicating whispered comments to each other. And even
after she had been duly provided with mittens and apron, and begun on
the corn, the chatter and boisterous merriment which her arrival had
interrupted, did not at once resume its course. Perhaps in a more
modern assembly the constraint might have been lasting, but our
forefathers did not depend so exclusively as we upon capricious and
uncompellable moods, which, like the winds, blow whence and when they
list, for the generation of vivacity in social gatherings. For that
same end they used most commonly a force as certain as steam in its
action; an influence kept in a jug.
Submit whispered to her father, and the old man merely poured a double
portion of rum into the cider flip, with which the huskers were being
regaled, and soon all went prosperously again. For rum in those good
old days was recognized as equally the accompaniment of toil and
recreation, and therefore had a double claim to the attention of
huskers.
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