alled. "What be them
men peradin' past here to your house for, and tellin' me it ain't
none of my business? You jest tell me, Pharline Pike, what you mean
by triflin' in this way?"

"Lord knows what it's all about! I don't!" she quavered.

"You do know, too!" he yelled. "Don't ye try to pull wool over my
eyes! You do know, too!"

"It's a turrible thing to be jealous," cooed Cap'n Sproul to his
trembling little wife, who had followed at his heels.

"I don't know, either," wailed the spinster. "There's one of 'em in
the settin'-room balancin' a plug-hat on his knees and sayin', 'Lo!
the bridegroom cometh'; and there's two on the front steps kickin'
the dog ev'ry time he comes at 'em; and there's one in the kitchen
that smells o' tar, and has got a bagful of shells and sech things
for presents to me; there's one in the barn lookin' over the
stock--and I s'pose they're comin' down the chimbly and up the suller
stairs by this time. You're the only one I've got in the world to
depend on, Colonel Gid. For mercy sakes, come!"

"What do they say--what's their excuse?" he demanded, suspiciously.

"They say--they say," she wailed--"they say they want to marry me,
but I don't know what they've all come hov'rin' round me for--honest
to Moses I don't!" She folded her hands in her apron and wrung them.
"I'm pretty nigh scart to death of 'em," she sobbed.

"I reckon you can give 'em an earful when you git down there," said
the Cap'n, "when you tell 'em that you've been engaged to her for
fifteen years. But it ain't none surprisin' that men that hear of
that engagement should most natch'ally conclude that a woman would
like to git married after a while. I cal'late ye see now,
brother-in-law, that you ain't the only man that appreciates what
a good woman Miss Pharlina Pike is."

"You come along, Pharline," said the Colonel, taking her arm, after
he had bored the Cap'n for a moment with flaming eye. "I reckon I
can pertect ye from all the tramps ever let loose out of
jails--and--and when I git to the bottom of this I predict there'll
be bloodshed--there'll be bones broke, anyway." With one more
malevolent look at the Cap'n he started away.

"It's only a short cut through the maple growth, Louada Murilla,"
said Sproul. "My rheumaticks is a good deal better of a sudden. Let's
you and me go along."

As they trudged he saw farmers at a distance here and there, and
called to them to follow.

"Look here, I don't need no bee!" how