control not to tell him he's doin' it, nor to let him see where your
pleasure lies, you've got marryin' down to a fine point.

"The third time, it was, I got a food crank, an' let me tell you right
now, my dear, them's the worst kind. A man what's queer about his food is
goin' to be queerer about a'most everything else. Give me any man that can
eat three square meals a day an' enjoy 'em, an' I'll undertake to live
with him peaceful, but I don't go to the altar again with no food crank,
if I know it.

"It was partly my own fault, too, as I see later. I'd seen him a-carryin'
a passel of health food around in his pocket an' a-nibblin' at it, but I
supposed it was because the poor creeter had never had no one to cook
proper for him, an' I took a lot of pleasure out of thinkin' how tickled
he'd be when I made him one of my chicken pies.

"After we was married, we took a honeymoon to his folks, an' I'll tell you
right now, my dear, that if there was more honeymoons took beforehand to
each other's folks, there'd be less marryin' done than what there is. They
was all a-eatin' hay an' straw an' oats just like the dumb creeters they
disdained, an' a-carryin' wheat an' corn around in their pockets to piece
out with between greens.

"So the day we got home, never knowin' what I was a-stirrin' up for
myself, I turned in an' made a chicken an' oyster pie, an' it couldn't be
beat, not if I do say it as shouldn't. The crust was as soft an' flaky an'
brown an' crisp at the edges as any I ever turned out, an' the inside was
all chicken an' oysters well-nigh smothered in a thick, creamy yellow
gravy.

"Well, sir, I brung in that pie, an' I set it on the table, an' I chirped
out that dinner was ready, an' he come, an'--my dear! You never saw such
goins'-on in all your born days! Considerin' that not eatin' animals makes
people's dispositions mild an' pleasant, it was sunthin' terrible, an' me
all the time as innercent as a lamb!

"I can't begin to tell you the things my new-made husband said to me. If
chickens an' oysters was human, I'll bet they'd have sued him for slander.
He said that oysters was 'the scavengers of the sea'--yes'm, them's his
very words, an' that chickens was even worse. He went on to tell me how
they et worms an' potato bugs an' beetles an' goodness knows what else,
an' that he wa'n't goin' to turn the temple of his body into no
slaughter-house. He asked me if I desired to eat dead animals, an' when he
insisted o