Wrinkle said, a trifle more mildly, "but you'll be
missin' some'n out o' the general run, if I'm any judge. Thar may have
been sech a thing sence the flood as a married woman callin' out all
hands to solemnize her first husband's demise while she's still wearin'
the weddin'-clothes bought by her second, but it's a new _wrinkle_ on
me, an' I hain't makin' what you mought call a pun, nuther."

Abruptly leaving the old man, Henley joined his clerk at the front.

"I get so mad at that old chap sometimes I could kick him," he said, in
an angry undertone. "Nothing under the sun is sacred to him."

"He's gettin' old and childish," Cahews answered. "I sorter love to hear
'im chatter. Some o' the things he says about folks and their
peculiarities sound powerful funny."

"Well, they don't to me," burst from Henley, "and I'll tell you another
thing, Jim--enough of a thing is a plenty, and while I'm away--" but
Wrinkle had approached, and, passing behind the counter, he was
tiptoeing that he might reach a candy-jar on the top shelf.

"Looks like I'm about yore only candy customer, Jim," he said to
Cahews. "Thar hain't been a stick took out o' this jar sence I was here
Monday. I laid one crossways on top just to see. I'd order a fresh lot
if I was you. This is gettin' dry and crumbly. I can suck wind through a
stick the same as a pipe-stem."

CHAPTER V

One clear, warm morning a week later Henley stood in the little porch in
front of his store and glanced up the street which gave into the road
that led on to his farm. In the store Cahews was nailing the top slats
on a coop of scrambling, squawking chickens, and with a pot of lampblack
and brush was marking it for shipment to Atlanta. In a cloud of dust in
the rear, Pomp, the negro porter and all-round servant on Henley's farm,
was turning the handle of a clattering machine for the separation of
chaff from grain. And while his eyes were resting on the road the
storekeeper saw a horse and wagon come around a bend and slowly advance
toward him. The horse was a poor beast of great age, and the wagon was
none the better for wear. It had lost all its original paint, the
woodwork was cracked by the weather and the sun. Its four wheels ran
unevenly; some of the spokes were missing, and its bolts and rods of
iron rattled in holes worn too large.

"By Gum, it's Dixie Hart, and she's fetching in a load of produce,"
Henley muttered; then he called out to Cahews: "Say, Jim, get t