"Much obliged." "Now, Aleck, hump yourself and you'll get the widow sure along with her fourteen children." "She ain't got but two children," returned the colored man, and hurried away.

His appearance, with the hump on his back and the sign, caused both the Rovers to burst out laughing.
"Come on, I've got to see the end of this," said Tom, and led the way by a side path to the Widow Taylor's cottage.

This was a short cut, but Aleck would not take it, because of the briar bushes and the dust.
As the boys were in their knockaround suits they did not mind this.
The widow's cottage was a tumbled down affair on a side street of Dexter's Corners.

A stovepipe stuck out of a back window, and the front door lacked the lower hinge.

In the front yard the weeds were several feet high.
"I don't see why Aleck wants to come and see such a person as this," observed Sam.