An Army Mule - Tapa blanda

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1910. Excerpt: ... Ill Job's stentorian declaration that he was not going to marry Hannah till he found his bonds had, of course, been heard throughout the little house. It produced an immediate deep hush of wonderment and dismay, in which Hannah's ultimatum came to the intent ears of the wedding guests with crisp and refreshing distinctness. Job had found his match, then, for once; and the interest in the contest of wills was so keen that none but a few sober business men like Mr. Paulding even wondered, at the moment, how Job had lost his bonds. Mr. Clark, the minister, shocked out of his usual shyness and self-distrust, started upstairs--only to meet Job coming down. Job cast upon him an angry and dominating eye. "I ain't goin' to cheat ye out 'n your pay," he thundered, " not now I got ye here." And thrusting a greenback into the limp hands of the astonished and dazed young man, he brushed by him before he could catch his breath to protest. Job stalked into the midst of the company, glaring at the hostile, amused, shocked, or embarrassed faces that confronted him. "Ye might's well go home--all on ye," he announced grimly. "There ain't goin' to be any weddin'--not yet. Barton," he added, " I want ye." And, turning, he marched from the room. His riotous mane all on end, his blue eyes gleaming and glaring through his bushy eyebrows, the curves of his resolute mouth bent down round his projecting chin, Job looked so fierce that the guests began to back away from him on every side. Only Miss Ware, the schoolmistress, gave a little gasp of amusement--Job so comically reminded her of a red, aggressive small boy who, smarting from recent discipline, dares his mates to laugh! The three or four shy bandsmen who, conscious of social disability, had preferred to sit on the grass ou...