t know any more about
business than a hog does about holidays, an' you know it, an' Forrester
knows it. You'll put your foot in it, that's what you'll do."

The old man looked pensively at one foot and then at the other, as if
speculating on the probable damage from such a catastrophe.

"I'm sure I dunno," he said plaintively. "Forrester 'peared to think I
ought to come; he tole me why, but I vum I've fergot." He took off his
hat and gazed into it searchingly, as if the idea that had mysteriously
escaped from his brain might have lodged in the crown.

Lysander fell to work with an energy born of disgust for another's
uselessness.

"Seein' I'm here, I reckon nobody'll objeck to my payin' my respecks to
the old woman," continued the newcomer, glancing from the crown of his
hat to Lysander's impassive face with covert inquiry.

"I guess if you c'n stand it, the rest of us'll have to," sneered his
son-in-law. "I've advised you over 'n' over again to steer clear of the
old woman; but there's no law agen a man courtin' his own wife, even if
she don't give 'im much encouragement."

The old man put on his hat, and shuffled uneasily toward the house.
Lysander stopped his work, and looked after him with a whimsical,
irreverent grimace.

"You're a nice old customer, you are; an' Forrester's 'nother. I wish to
the livin' gracious the old woman'd send you a-kitin'; but she won't;
she'll bark at you all day, but she won't bite. Women's queer."

Mrs. Withrow was engaged in what she called "workin' the bread into the
pans." She received her dejected spouse with a snort of disapproval.

"When the donkey come a-clatterin' up to the door, I knowed there was
another follerin'," she said acridly. "Come in an' set down. I s'pose
you're tired: you mostly are."

The old man sidled sheepishly into the room and seated himself, and his
wife turned her back upon him and fell to kneading vigorously a mass of
dough that lay puffing and writhing on the floured end of a pine table.

"I jess come on Forrester's 'count," he began haltingly: "that is, he
didn't want me to come, but I wasn't goin' to do what Forrester said. I
ain't a-carin' fer Forrester. I wasn't goin' to take a trip 'way up here
jess because he wanted me to, so I didn't. I"--

"Shut up!" said his wife savagely, without turning her head.

The visitor obeyed, evidently somewhat relieved to escape even thus
ignominiously from the bog into which his loquacity was leading him.