Wal, then there was young Jeff Sullivan, the Ginerals nephew, he turned up; and the Gineral he took a gret fancy to him. He was next heir to the Gineral; but hed ben a pretty rackety youngster in his young days,off to sea, and what not, and sowed a considable crop o wild oats. People said hed been a pirating off there in South Ameriky. Lordy massy! nobody rightly knew where he hed ben or where he hadnt: all was, he turned up at last all alive, and chipper as a skunk blackbird. Wal, of course he made his court to Ruth; and the Gineral, he rather backed him up in it; but Ruth she wouldnt have nothin to say to him. Wal, he come and took up his lodgin at the Ginerals; and he was jest as slippery as an eel, and sort o slid into every thing, that was a goin on in the house and about it. He was here, and he was there, and he was everywhere, and a havin his say about this and that; and he got everybody putty much under his thumb. And they used to say, he wound the Gineral round and round like a skein o yarn; but he couldnt come it round Ruth.
Wal, the Gineral said she shouldnt be forced; and Jeff, he was smooth as satin, and said hed be willing to wait as long as Jacob did for Rachel. And so there he sot down, a watchin as patient as a cat at a mouse-hole; cause the Gineral he was thick-set and short-necked, and drank pretty free, and was one o the sort that might pop off any time.
Wal, Mis Sullivan, she beset the Gineral to make a provision for Ruth; cause she told him very sensible, that hed brought her up in luxury, and that it want fair not to settle somethin on her; and so the Gineral he said hed make a will, and part the property equally between them. And he says to Jeff, that, if he played his part as a young fellow oughter know how, it would all come to him in the end; cause they hadnt heard nothing from Captain Oliver for three or four years, and folks about settled it that he must be dead.
Wal, the Gineral he got a letter about an estate that had come to him in England; and he had to go over. Wal, livin on the next estate, was the very cousin of the Ginerals that he was to a married when they was both young: the lands joined so that the grounds run together. What came between them two nobody knows; but she never married, and there she was. There was high words between the Gineral and Madam Sullivan about his goin over. She said there want no sort o need ont, and he said there was; and she said she hoped she should be in her grave afore he come back; and he said she might suit herself about that for all him. That are was the story that the housekeeper told to Aunt Polly; and Aunt Polly she told me. These ere squabbles somehow allers does kind o leak out one way or tother. Anyhow, it was a house divided agin itself at the Ginerals, when he was a fixin out for the voyage. There was Ruth a goin fust to one, and then to tother, and tryin all she could to keep peace beteen em; and there was this ere Master Slick Tongue talkin this way to one side, and that way to tother, and the old Gineral kind o like a shuttle-cock atween em.