Silas; you’d ’a’ done it if you could, I reckon.

And the shirt ain’t all that’s gone, nuther. Ther’s a spoon gone; and that ain’t all. There was ten, and now ther’ only nine. The calf got the shirt, I reckon, but the calf never took the spoon, that’s certain.”

“Why, what else is gone, Sally?”

“Ther’s six candles gone — that’s what. The rats could ’a’ got the candles, and I reckon they did; I wonder they don’t walk off with the whole place, the way you’re always going to stop their holes and don’t do it; and if they warn’t fools they’d sleep in your hair, Silas — you’d never find it out; but you can’t lay the spoon on the rats, and that I know.”