ded up in a case of
'sault an' battery, I rec'lect, but I don't remember jest how.
Somethin' we ben sayin' put the thing into my head, I guess."

"I should like to hear the rest of it," said John, smiling.

David made no reply to this, and seemed to be turning something over in
his mind. At last he said:

"Mebbe Polly's told ye that I'm a wid'wer."

John admitted that Mrs. Bixbee had said as much as that.

"Yes, sir," said David, "I'm a wid'wer of long standin'."

No appropriate comment suggesting itself to his listener, none was made.

"I hain't never cared to say much about it to Polly," he remarked,
"though fer that matter Jim Bixbee, f'm all accounts, was about as poor
a shack as ever was turned out, I guess, an'--"

John took advantage of the slight hesitation to interpose against what
he apprehended might be a lengthy digression on the subject of the
deceased Bixbee by saying:

"You were quite a young fellow when you were married, I infer."

"Two or three years younger 'n you be, I guess," said David, looking at
him, "an' a putty green colt too in some ways," he added, handing over
the reins and whip while he got out his silver tobacco box and helped
himself to a liberal portion of its contents. It was plain that he was
in the mood for personal reminiscences.

"As I look back on't now," he began, "it kind o' seems as if it must 'a'
ben some other feller, an' yet I remember it all putty dum'd well
too--all but one thing, an' that the biggist part on't, an' that is how
I ever come to git married at all. She was a widdo' at the time, an'
kep' the boardin' house where I was livin'. It was up to Syrchester. I
was better lookin' them days 'n I be now--had more hair at any
rate--though," he remarked with a grin, "I was alwus a better goer than
I was a looker. I was doin' fairly well," he continued, "but mebbe not
so well as was thought by some.

"Wa'al, she was a good-lookin' woman, some older 'n I was. She seemed to
take some shine to me. I'd roughed it putty much alwus, an' she was
putty clever to me. She was a good talker, liked a joke an' a laugh, an'
had some education, an' it come about that I got to beauin' her 'round
quite a consid'able, and used to go an' set in her room or the parlor
with her sometimes evenin's an' all that, an' I wouldn't deny that I
liked it putty well."

It was some minutes before Mr. Harum resumed his narrative. The reins
were sagging over the dashboard, held loosely between