MY PEOPLE
Whereupon Bertha went to Penlon and said to Abram:
“Terrible indeed to goodness is Silas’s tongue about you, little Abram.”
Abram ordered Nansi to give Bertha a pat of butter, and then hurried to the tramping road. He met Silas outside Shop Rhys, and in the eye of the village he thrashed the blasphemy out of him.
After that there was no more spirit left in Silas.
In their day Silas and Nansi had saved eighty sovereigns, and when Abram had spent all that money in improving the land and the outhouses of Penlon, he called up Silas and Nansi before him:
“Silas and Nansi,” he said to them, “have I not been long-suffering with your filthy old ways?”
“Iss, indeed, little Abram,” replied Nansi, “like the white little Jesus you are to us.”
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