distracted" no sooner was it announced that "Al-f-u-r-d" was out of danger than she began gathering the "green tomattisus" lying in irregular rows on various window sills to ripen in the sun, giving vent to her pent-up "feelings" thus:
"Huh! Tomattisus! Never was made to eat. They ain't no good, no-way. Pap's right. They're called Jerusalem apples 'caus they wuz first planted by the Jews, who knowed their enemies would eat 'em an' git pizened an' die of cancers, an' Lord knows what else."
She carried the offending fruit to the family swill barrel, where the leavings of the table were deposited. As she raised one big tomato to drop it into the barrel, her hand paused, as she soliloquized:
"No, If tomattisus will pizen pee-pul, they'll pizen hogs. They ain't fit for hogs nohow. They ain't fit fer nuthin' but heathens an' sich like, as oughter be pizened."
Turning to one of several neighbors, whose looks denoted disapproval of wilful waste, she benevolently emptied the tomatoes into the woman's upheld apron, remarking:
"Lordy. Yer welcome to 'em if yer folks like 'em an' ain't carin' much when they die. Take 'em. Ye kin have 'em an' welcome."
While the father was yanking the noxious tomato plants out by the roots and sprinkling the ground with lime, "Al-f-u-r-d" began showing symptoms of returning life. After the nurses had tiptoed from the room, supposedly leaving him in deep slumber, he threw back the linen sheets and slid from the bed on the side farthest from the open door leading to the kitchen. Cautiously creeping to where lay his trousers—inserting a hand in the deep pocket, which had been put in by Lin by special request—he drew out two long, dark, worm-like objects, holding them at arm's length gagging anew at even the sight of them. Staggering to the cupboard dropping them into a box half filled with similar worm-like objects, he staggered back to bed as quickly as his weakened condition would permit, suppressing another upheaval of his stomach with greatest effort.
Notwithstanding the objects mentioned were Ed. Hurd's best three-for-a-cent stogies, and "Al-f-u-r-d" had smoked
less than four of the six inches of one of the big, black cigars, the stub of which he had buried near the spot where Lin found him, it was several days before he took kindly to food, or, as was generally supposed, had wholly thrown off the baneful effects of
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