hat he orter go to work
at. It was the fall of the year, and they was purty good hunting around
there where Colonel Tom lived, and Dave hadn't never been South any, and
so he goes. He figgers he better take a good, long vacation, anyhow. Fur
if he goes to work that winter or the next spring, and ties up with some
job that keeps him in an office, there may be months and months pass by
before he has another chance at a vacation. That is the worst part of a
job--I found that out myself--you never can tell when you are going to
get shut of it, once you are fool enough to start in.

In Tennessee he had met Miss Lucy. Which her wedding to Prent McMakin
was billed fur to come off about the first of November, jest a month
away.

"I don't know whether I ever told you or not," says the doctor, "but I
was engaged to be married myself, Tom, when I went down to your place.
That was what started all the trouble.

"You know engagements are like vaccination--sometimes they take, and
sometimes they don't. Of course, I had thought at one time I was in love
with this girl I was engaged to. When I found out I wasn't, I should
have told her so right away. But I didn't. I thought that she would
get tired of me after a while and turn me loose. I gave her plenty of
chances to turn me loose. I wanted her to break the engagement instead
of me. But she wouldn't take the hints. She hung on like an Ohio Grand
Army veteran to a country post-office. About half the time I didn't read
her letters, and about nineteen twentieths of the time I didn't answer
them. They say hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. But it isn't
so--it makes them all the fonder of you. I got into the habit of
thinking that while Emma might be engaged to me, I wasn't engaged to
Emma. Not but what Emma was a nice girl, you know, but--

"Well, I met Lucy. We fell in love with each other. It just happened.
I kept intending to write to the other girl and tell her plainly that
everything was off. But I kept postponing it. It seemed like a deuce of
a hard job to tackle.

"But, finally, I did write her. That was the very day Lucy promised to
throw Prent McMakin over and marry me. You know how determined all your
people were that Lucy should marry McMakin, Tom. They had brought her up
with the idea that she was going to, and, of course, she was bored with
him for that reason.

"We decided the best plan would be to slip away quietly and get married.
We knew it would raise a row.