sked her the first time." He removed his
weather-worn straw hat. "See that? Doc Brown had to take seven stitches
in it, an' he says if old Hawkins the undertaker had seen it first, I
wouldn't have had to send for a doctor at all. You ask her yourself, if
you're so blamed anxious to know. I seen her out in the back yard just
'fore I left. She was lookin' kinder sad and down in the mouth; so I sez
to her as gentle as I knowed how--an' as legally as possible, on the
advice of my lawyer: 'Good mornin', Mrs. Loop.' An' then when I seen her
lookin' around for somethin' to throw at me, I knowed it wasn't any use
tryin' to be polite, so I sez: 'Git out o' my sight, you old cow!' And
'fore you could say scat, she was out o' my sight. I didn't know it was
possible for me to be so spry at _my_ age. Just as she was gettin' out
o' my sight by me gettin' around the corner of the barn, I heard
somethin' go ker-slam ag'inst the side of the barn, but I don't know
what it was. Sounded like a milk-crock."

Anderson looked at him sorrowfully. "Well, you can't say I didn't warn
you, Liff."

"Warn me about what?"

"'Bout advertisin' fer a wife. I told you no good could come of it. An'
now I guess you'll agree that I was right."

"Oh, shucks! Anna was as good a woman as I ever had, Andy Crow, an' I
don't know as I ever had a better worker around the place. Fer two years
she--"

He choked up and began to sniffle.

"There ain't no denyin' the fact she lasted longer'n any of 'em," agreed
Anderson. "I don't just exactly remember how many funerals you've had,
Liff, but--say, just out o' curiosity, how many have you had? Me an'
Mrs. Crow had a dispute about it last evenin'."

"It's cost me a lot o' money, Anderson, a turrible lot o' money,"
groaned Eliphalet, "what with doctors' bills an' coffins; an'
nothin'--absolutely nothin'--to show fer it! No children, no--nothin'
but mother-in-laws an' tombstones. By gosh, why is it mother-in-laws
last so long? I've got five mother-in-laws livin' this minute, an' the
good Lord knows I never done anything to encourage 'em. I've lost four
wives an' not a single mother-in-law. It don't seem right--now, does
it, Anderson?"

"Well, if you'd married somebody nearer your own age, Liff, you might
stand some chance of out-livin' their mothers. But you been marryin'
women anywheres from fifty to sixty years younger'n you are. You must be
derned near eighty."

"If you git 'em too old, they're allus complain