"The end of it will be that you will sleep
away from home on your birthday. You have never done that yet, Francis,
since your father's death, I don't like your doing it now. Wait a day
longer, my son--only one day."
For my own part, I was weary of being idle, and I couldn't abide the
notion of delay. Even one day might make all the difference. Some other
man might take time by the forelock, and get the place.
"Consider how long I have been out of work," I says, "and don't ask me to
put off the journey. I won't fail you, mother. I'll get back by to-morrow
night, if I have to pay my last sixpence for a lift in a cart.
My mother shook her head. "I don't like it, Francis--I don't like it!"
There was no moving her from that view. We argued and argued, until we
were both at a deadlock. It ended in our agreeing to refer the difference
between us to my mother's sister, Mrs. Chance.
While we were trying hard to convince each other, my aunt Chance sat as
dumb as a fish, stirring her tea and thinking her own thoughts. When we
made our appeal to her, she seemed as it were to wake up. "Ye baith refer
it to my puir judgment?" she says, in her broad Scotch. We both answered
Yes. Upon that my aunt Chance first cleared the tea-table, and then pulled
out from the pocket of her gown a pack of cards.
Don't run away, if you please, with the notion that this was done lightly,
with a view to amuse my mother and me.
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