They stayed to supper, after which
the whole family walked to the tavern with them, Joe and Betsey drawing
the baby in their "bumble wagon," which Samson had made for them. When
Ann began to show weariness, Abe gently lifted her in his arms and
carried her.
That evening Mrs. Peter Lukins called upon Abe at Sam Hill's store where
he sat alone, before the fire, reading with two candles burning on the
end of a dry goods box at his elbow.
There was an anxious look in her one eye as she accepted his invitation
to sit down in the firelight.
"I wanted to see you private 'bout Lukins," she began. "There's them that
calls him Bony Lukins but I reckon he ain't no bonier than the everidge
run o' men--not a bit--an' if he was I don't reckon his bones orto be
throwed at him every time he's spoke to that away."
Peter Lukins was a slim, sober faced, quiet little man with a long nose
who worked in the carding mill. He never spoke, save when spoken to, and
then with a solemn look as if the matter in hand, however slight, were
likely to affect his eternal welfare.
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