led, and whisked into the
house.

"Come on, Alf," old Wrinkle advised, with a look of amusement in his
eyes. "Let 'er sweat it out alone. She's jest tryin' to work on you,
anyway. She'll be as smooth as goose-grease by night. Looky here, Alf,
I'm an old man, an' you are jest a boy by comparison," he went on, as
they walked down the road together, "but what I don't know about women
you don't know about hosses, and you know a lot. I've learned women inch
by inch all through life. I reckon I got on to it by lyin' around the
fire on cold or wet days and listenin' to 'em. They say some men make a
study of rocks, ores, plants, an' bugs, but my hobby always was females.
Why, I almost know what turn a baby gal will take when it grows up. It
was a sort of funny game with me. I set out to see if I'd ever see a
woman do or say a sensible thing, an' I hain't won yet. Now, you may not
know it, my boy, but you are in hot water, an' it is deep enough to
float yore whiskers. You had married life down about right till just a
few days ago. You could go and come whenever you liked an' nobody axed
any questions. You was about the freest married man I ever knowed, white
or black, yaller or red, but yore day of reckoning has come. I knowed
some'n was wrong last night when you an' Het had that powwow in the
yard, an' I knowed the sun was shinin' too bright this mornin' to do
yore crop any good except to burn it up. I know Het. I've watched her
bury one man an' start in with another, an' if you had been a worryin'
feller she'd have had you mouldin' in the ground long go. As long as
Hettie could worry you she was happy. Part of that grave-rock
celebration was because she 'lowed it bothered you. I couldn't help
hearin' the talk last night. You both spoke louder than you thought, an'
the wind was blowin' my way. Why, man, when you set thar last night an'
told that woman that her undyin' love for Dick was holy an' godly an' a
thing to be kept in a glass case an' looked at every hour in the day--I
say when you throwed all that guff at her you sealed yore doom. Them
words kicked every prop from under her, an' down she come with a flop
that knocked the breath out of all her calculations. She looks fresh and
rosy this morning, but she rolled and tumbled the most of the night. I
don't sleep sound, an' I heard her. I wondered what step she'd take, an'
the breakfast-table grins an' rose-bud and buggy-ride proposition showed
her hand. This mad spell is pa