s too much of a good thing. They set about where me and Miss Dixie was
every spare minute. I've seen gals love their kin, but this un fairly
dotes on hers. Why, one of 'em couldn't git up to get a drink without
Dixie jumpin' and telling her to set still, that she'd get it for her.
I'm as good as the average in knowing how to handle a woman, Alf, but I
don't profess to know how to court one in a crowd. One of these two is
half blind and t'other is lame, but that didn't help me out, for they
didn't let their tongues rest a second. They kept alluding to some chap
or other that was dead. They said they hadn't ever seen him, but kept
talking about his picture and wondering if he looked like me, and how
he'd like it to see me there, and so on. Seemed like the girl wanted to
shut that talk off, for she told 'em several times to be quiet and to
remember what they had promised her."

"Women are all hard to understand." There was a knowing twinkle in
Henley's eyes, which he averted from Long's anxious gaze. "I reckon
Dixie thought you ought to get acquainted with the family if you and her
are to come to any permanent understanding."

"Maybe so," Long agreed, wearily. "But I have enough dealings with old
rag-chawers in my business through the week not to want a Sunday off
when I get with my own sort. But this un is a prize, Alf, and worth any
man's trouble to get her. I'll never forget that dinner if I live to be
a hundred. I had to rise early to get a start from town, and the ride
kind o' whetted my appetite to a sharp edge, so that I was really ready
for anything she wanted to pass; but, geewhilikins! when we all slid our
chairs out into that dining-room, where everything was as white as snow
and shiny as a new dollar, and where green things was stuck about all
around, I begun to know what high living was. And she told me she'd
cooked every dab of it herself. Just think of that, and on top of it
rigged up like she did and went to meeting as fresh and cool as a rose
under dewy leaves! I made up my mind, as I set there and ate all that
good stuff, and saw her at the head of the table fingering things in
such a dainty way, that I'd have her at the head of my table in a fine,
new house, or bust a trace. I'm to come out again next Sunday. In the
mean time I'm going to try to think up some way to choke that old pair
of hens off my roost."

"Oh, they'll let you alone after a while," Henley said. "You see, you
are a novelty right now.