"
"Where did she go?"
"A Methodist preacher put her in his buggy and started to her master's
with her."
"Then she'll beat the wind," said Van Dorn; "these preachers are all
horse-jockeys, and can outswap the devil. _Hola! ya, ya!_ I must see to
this."
He strode out, with a cold eye glanced at Hulda.
"Come, young people," spoke the grand head of Jacob Cannon to Levin and
Hulda; "I will show you my museum."
He led the way to a warehouse overhanging the river and unlocked a door,
and told them to walk carefully till they could see in the dark of the
interior.
Levin kept Hulda's hand in his as they slowly saw emerge from the
shadows a great variety of dissimilar things heaped together, till the
house could hardly hold the vast aggregate of pots and kettles,
spinning-wheels and cradles, bedsteads and beds, harrows and ploughs,
chairs and gridirons, rakes and hoes, silhouettes and picture-frames,
hand-made quilts of calico and pillows of home-plucked geese feathers,
fishermen's nets and oars--whatever made the substance of living in an
old country without minerals and manufactures, in the early part of the
nineteenth century.
"Whare did you git' em, sir?" Levin asked.
"Executed of 'em," said the warrior head and stature of Jacob Cannon;
"pounced on 'em; satisfied judgments upon 'em. _Fi. fa.!_ We call
this Peale's Museum Number Two, or the Variegated Quotient.
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