re now and tellin'
the nosy citizens of this place that I'm ready to be married, and
so's she who is goin' to be my companion, and we'll 'tend to our own
business in spite of the gossips of Smyrna. It's for this day week!
I don't want no more lyin' gossip about it. You're gittin' it straight
this time. It's for this day week; no invitations, no cards, no
flowers, no one's durnation business. There, take that home and chaw
on it. Pharline, let's you and me go into the house."

"I reckon there's witnesses enough to make that bindin'," muttered
Cap'n Sproul under his breath.

He bent forward and tapped the Colonel on the arm as Ward was about
to step upon the piazza.

"Who do ye suspect?" he whispered, hoarsely.

It was a perfectly lurid gaze that his brother-in-law turned on him.

What clutched Ward's arm was a grip like a vise. He glared into the
Colonel's eyes with light fully as lurid as that which met his gaze.
He spoke low, but his voice had the grating in it that is more ominous
than vociferation.

"I thought I'd warn ye not to twit. My rheumaticks is a good deal
better at this writin', and my mind ain't so much occupied by other
matters as it has been for a week or so. When you come home don't
talk northin' but business, jest as you natch'ally would to a
brother-in-law and an equal pardner. That advice don't cost northin',
but it's vallyble."

As Cap'n Sproul trudged home, his little wife's arm tucked snugly
in the hook of his own, he observed, soulfully:

"Mattermony, Louada Murilla--mattermony, it is a blessed state that
it does the heart good to see folks git into as ought to git into
it. As the poet says--um-m-m, well, it's in that book on the
settin'-room what-not. I'll read it to ye when we git home."

V

Cap'n Aaron Sproul was posted that bright afternoon on the end of
his piazza. He sat bolt upright and twiddled his gnarled thumbs
nervously. His wife came out and sat down beside him.

"Where you left off, Cap'n," she prompted meekly, "was when the black,
whirling cloud was coming and you sent the men up-stairs--"

"Aloft!" snapped Cap'n Sproul.

"I mean aloft--and they were unfastening the sails off the ropes,
and--"

"Don't talk of snuggin' a ship like you was takin' in a wash," roared
the ship-master, in sudden and ungallant passion. It was the first
impatient word she had received from him in that initial, cozy year
of their marriage. Her mild brown eyes swam in tears as she lo