over seventy. And that you know, Tamer Ann, must make the old man pretty old, and, in fact, a pretty old family, for they are all livin', father, son, and grandson. But, good land! nobody ever thought of lookin' up to old Father Minkler, why, he is on the town, and has been on it for years, and they say now his son is on it and his grandson is jest thinkin' of gittin' on it. Good land! I should never think of lookin' up to a family because they wuz old."
"Well," she sez, "they've descended from a long line of ancestors, they have great reason to be proud of it, there is where they have the advantage of us."
"Oh, shaw!" sez I, "that is jest what we've all done, or it stands to reason that we shouldn't be here. We have had to have ancestors, everybody has. I don't see that he has any more than we have, so fur as that is concerned. I don't spoze he has had more'n one father, or any of 'em have had more'n one father apiece, and that is jest what we've all had. If he had had several fathers and mothers it might be sunthin' to boast over, and I don't know as it would after all, for the text sez 'every man stands and falls on himself,' or words to that effect."
And then Tamer Ann sez agin, real hautily, "He is from one of the old Dutch families it makes folks so proud to be descended from. He is a direct descendant of the Poltroons."
"Well," sez I calmly, "I shouldn't wonder a mite if he wuz, but it don't raise him up any in my estimation, and it wouldn't if he had had Solomon and Moses for grandfathers. When I gather a white lily I pick it for its beauty and sweetness, and not for the soil it sprung from, good land! what do I care whether it grew on
