And the merciful man is merciful to his beasts."
The flies droned and buzzed that summer afternoon. Jerusha nodded over
the big Bible. Aunt Clara tried to look serious over the book she held.
But the latent laugh was coursing among the dimples in her face, like a
spark among tinder. I stole up behind, and, leaning over her shoulder,
kissed her.
"O, yes," said aunty. "Fine words butter no parsnips, and fine kisses
are no better."
Jerusha's head made an awful plunge, then a reactionary lift back, and
then she opened her eyes and her mouth with such a yawn!
"Why, what a mouth!" I cried. "Master Minim would rejoice if you would
thus open out in singing-school,
'And vie with Gabriel, while he sings.'"
Off went Aunt Clara in the laugh again, and this time till the tears
came. We saw now that there was something in that line which provoked
her mirth; but what Gabriel could have to do with her strange behavior
we could not imagine, and were wisely silent.
"Girls," she said, as soon as she could speak for laughing, "I _will_
tell you."
We knew she would, provided we were not too anxious to hear. So Jerusha
turned over her leaf to the second chapter of I Chronicles,
"Reuben, Simeon, Levi." I pretended to be more than ever interested out
of doors.
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