CHAPTER XXXI.
CYNTHY ANN'S SACRIFICE.
Jonas had been all his life, as he expressed it in his mixed rhetoric, "a wanderin' sand-hill crane, makin' many crooked paths, and, like the cards in French monte, a-turnin' up suddently in mighty on-expected places." He had been in every queer place from Halifax to Texas, and then had come back to his home again.

Naturally cautious, and especially suspicious of the female sex, it is not strange that he had not married.
Only when he "tied up to the same w'arf-boat alongside of Cynthy Ann, he thought he'd found somebody as was to be depended on in a fog or a harricane." This he told to Cynthy Ann as a reason why she should accept his offer of marriage.
"Jonas," said Cynthy Ann, "don't flatter.

My heart is dreadful weak, and prone to the vanities of this world.

It makes me abhor myself in dust and sackcloth fer you to say such things about poor unworthy me." "Ef I think 'em, why shouldn't I say 'em?
I don't know no law agin tellin' the truth ef you git into a place where you can't no ways help it.

I don't call you angel, fer you a'n't; you ha'nt got no wings nor feathers.