There's
some folks that'll set on addled aigs year in an' year out, as if there wa'n't
good fresh ones bein' laid every day; an' Lije Dennett's one of 'em, when it
comes to river-drivin'."
"There's lots o' folks as have made a good livin' by mindin' their own
business," observed the still sententious Mrs. Wiley, as she speared a soda
biscuit with her fork.
"Mindin' your own business is a turrible selfish trade," responded her husband
loftily. "If your neighbor is more ignorant than what you are,--partic'larly
if he's as ignorant as Cooper's cow,--you'd ought, as a Kennebec man an' a
Christian, to set him on the right track, though it's always a turrible risky
thing to do." Rose's grandfather was called, by the irreverent younger
generation, sometimes "Turrible Wiley" and sometimes "Old Kennebec," because
of the frequency with which these words appeared in his conversation. There
were not wanting those of late who dubbed him Uncle Ananias, for reasons too
obvious to mention. After a long, indolent, tolerably truthful, and useless
life, he had, at seventy-five, lost sight of the dividing line between fact
and fancy, and drew on his imagination to such an extent that he almost
staggered himself when he began to indulge in reminiscence.
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