some, but for all I can see
you're going to make another Providence wife. Ain't you got none of the
suffering-women new notions at all?"

"I can't help it," answered the singer lady, ducking her head behind
Martin Luther again, but smiling up out of the corners of her eyes.

"Are you just going to drop over into being a poor, down-trodden,
miserable, man-bossed Harpeth Hill's wife, without trying a single
new-fashioned husband remedy on him, with so many receipts for managing
'em being written down by ladies all over the world, mostly single
ones?" demanded Mother Mayberry, fairly bubbling over with glee at the
singer lady's abashment.

"Yes, I am," answered Miss Wingate sturdily. "I want him to have just
what he wants."

"This are worse and more of it," exclaimed the Doctor's delighted
Mother. "You are got a wrong notion, child! Marriage ain't no slow,
plow-team business these days; it's hitched at opposite ends and
pulling both ways for dear life. Don't you even hope you will be; able
to think up no kind of tantrums to keep Tom Mayberry from being happy?"

"I don't want to," laughed the infatuated bride prospective.

"Then I reckon I'll have to give up and let you settle down into being
one of these here regular old-fashioned, primping-for-a-man,
dinner-on-the-table-at-the-horn-blow,
hanging-over-the-front-gate-waiting kind of wives. I thought I'd caught
a high-faluting bird of Paradise for him and you ain't a thing in the
world but a meadow dove. But there comes Bettie scooting through the
rain with little Hoover under her shawl. Providence folks have got duck
blood, all of 'em, and the more it pours out they paddles. Come in and
shake your feathers, Bettie."

"Howdy all," exclaimed the rosy Mrs. Hoover. "This here rain on the
corn is money in everybody's pocket. I just stopped in to show you this
pink flowered shirt-waist I have done finished for Miss Prissy Pike.
Ain't it stylish?"

"It surely are, Bettie!" exclaimed Mother Mayberry. "I'm so glad you
got it pink."

"And it don't run neither. I tried it," said the proud designer of the
admired garment.

"That's a good sign for the wedding. You can rub happiness that's fast
dyed through any kinder worry suds and it'll come out with the color
left. Any news along the Road?" asked Mother Mayberry, as she handled
the rosy blouse with careful hands.

"Well, Henny Turner says that Squire Tutt are in bed covered up head
and ears with the quilts, but 'Lias s