of one large hand, and cried out “Haw!” in a tone of such idiotic exuberance and exultancy that it is impossible to reproduce in words the limitless and earthly vulgarity of its humour. At the same time he prodded his mother stiffly in the ribs with his clumsy fingers, an act that made her shriek out resentfully, and then say in a vexed and fretful tone:
“I’ll vow, boy! You act like a regular idiot! If I didn’t have any more sense than to go and play a trick like that—I’d be ash-a-a-med—ash-a-a-a-med,” she whispered, with a puckered mouth, as she shook her head at him in a movement of strong deprecation, scorn, and reproof. “I’d be ashamed to let anyone know I was such a fool,” his mother said.
“Whah! Whah!” Luke shouted with his wild, limitlessly exuberant laugh, that was so devastating in its idiotic exultancy that all words, reproaches, scorn, or attempts at reason were instantly reduced to nothing by it. “Whee!” he cried, prodding her in her resentful ribs again, his handsome face broken by his huge and exuberant smile. Then, as if cherishing something secret and uncommunicably funny in its idiotic humour, he smote himself upon the forehead again, cried out, “Whah—Whah!” and then, shaking his grinning face to himself in this movement of secret and convulsive humour, he said: “Whee! Go-o-d-damn!” in a tone of mincing and ironic refinement.
“Why, what on earth has got into you, boy?” his mother cried out fretfully. “Why, you’re actin’like a regular simpleton, I’ll vow you are!”
“Whah! Whah!” Luke cried exultantly.
“Now, I don’t know where it comes from,” said his mother judicially, with a deliberate and meditative sarcasm, as if she were seriously considering the origin of his lunacy. “There’s one thing sure: you never got it from me. Now, all my people had their wits about them—now, say what you please,” she went on in a thoughtful tone, as she stared with puckered mouth into the fire, “I never heard of a weak-minded one in the whole crowd—”
“Whah—whah!” he cried.
“—So you didn’t get it from any of my people,” she went on with deliberate and telling force—“no, you didn’t!” she said.
“Whah-h!” he prodded her in the ribs again, and then immediately, and in a very earnest tone, he said:
“W-w-w-wy, I was just f-f-f-finkin’it would be a good idea if we all w-w-
