Let the Tracys bury their own dead, I
say!'
''Ess, 'ess, 'ess,' Jerry chimed in with an emphatic shake of her head
with each ''ess,' and a flourish of her hand more threatening than
approving toward the speaker, who glanced at her and went on:
'Do you see, gentlemen of the jury, who this cub looks like. I do! and
so can you with half an eye. She looks like Arthur Tracy!'
Just then Jerry swept back her golden hair, and, opening her eyes,
flashed them around the room until they rested by accident upon Frank,
who, pale, and faint, and terrified, was leaning against the door-way
trying to seem only amused at the tirade which was concluded as follows:
'Yes, Arthur Tracy! Not her skin, perhaps, nor hair, nor her eyes,
leastwise not the color, but something I can't describe; and this woman,
her mother, you say is a furriner; that may be, but I've seen her afore,
or I'm mistaken. She took passage once on the 'Liza Ann, I'm sure on't,
and Arthur look passage same day as far as Chester and was as chipper as
you please with her. I don't say nothin', nor insinerate nothin', but I
won't consent to have the town pay what belongs to the Tracys. Let 'em
run their own canoes and funerals, too, I say; and as for this young one
with the yaller hair--though where she got that the lord only knows;
'tain't her's,' pointing to the corpse; 'nor 'tain't his'n,' pointing in
the direction of Arthur's rooms; 'as for her, I'm opposed to sendin' to
the poor-house another pauper.
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