uld get up, even after Aunt Melissy told him to, and Cousin Minty
Glenwood began to cry, and Aunt Melissy told her to go to bed at once,
and made a swing at her, and missed her, as she went by. She didn't miss
the hired man, though; and I guess he had something else to think of
besides Minty Glenwood and housekeeping, for a few minutes, anyway.

"Then Aunt Melissy Lovejoy told him he could take himself out of that
house, and not come back except for meals, and she said he could sleep
over in the shop, which was an old, leaky, broken stump of a tree where
we kept our garden tools. Then I happened to be sitting in the way, and
Aunt Melissy tripped over my feet, and when she righted herself she made
a swing at me, too; and if I had not dodged in time I might have been
injured for life. As it was, she drove me out with Winters to stay in
the shop, and I wasn't sorry, for it was an awful time in our house.

"Next morning, Aunt Melissy Lovejoy was still dangerous, and at
breakfast she broke out at things in general, and said the idea that
she, a Glenwood, should live to see a hired man sitting up to a child of
hers, especially one who was a Glenwood herself, resembling the family
as she did, and being named that way, too; which seemed worse, somehow,
than anything that ever happened to a Glenwood before, except her own
case; and she gave an awful look at Uncle Silas, who got a little
spunky--the only time I ever saw him that way--and said he thought that
Winters was quite a good fellow and would make as good a husband as
_he_ had, meaning himself, of course, and Aunt Melissy said, 'Yes, just
about,' and asked him if he wanted his daughter to have as hard a row to
hoe as _she_ had, meaning _herself_, though it was Uncle Silas who had
the hard hoeing in that family, if I could judge.

[Illustration: "THAT NIGHT WINTERS AND I TALKED IT OVER"]

"Well, that night in the shop, Winters and I talked it over, and he
decided to go away and take Minty Glenwood with him. He might go to the
city, he said, to his folks, who had disowned him because he had been
quite wild, but very likely would take him back now that he had reformed
and was ready to be tamed by a nice little person like Minty Glenwood.
He and Minty would have to elope, of course, and he told me to tell her
just what to do, because I could get to see her alone, which he
couldn't. There was a little sapling grew near the tree, and one of its
limbs stuck out above her window