oose tops'l in a gale of
wind. 'Yup,' says she, 'I b'lieve it just as much as I b'lieve anything.
How could I help it when he told me so much that has come true already?
He said I'd seen trouble, and the dear land knows that's so! and that I
might see more, and I cal'late that's pretty average likely. And he said
I hadn't been brought up in luxury--'

"'Which wa'n't no exaggeration neither,' I put in, thinkin' of the shack
over on the Neck Road where she and her folks used to live.

"'No,' says she; 'and he told me I'd always had longin's for better and
higher things and that my intellectuals was above my station. Well, ever
sence I was knee high to a kitchen chair I'd ruther work upstairs than
down, and as for intellectuals, ma always said I was the smartest
young one she'd raised yet. So them statements give me consider'ble
confidence. But he give out that I was to make a journey and get money,
and when THAT come true I held up both hands and stood ready to swaller
all the rest of it.'

"'So it come true, did it?' says I.

"'Um-hm,' says she, bouncin' her head again. 'Inside of four year I
traveled 'way over to South Eastboro--'most twelve mile--to my Uncle
Issy's fun'ral, and there I found that he'd left me nine hundred dollars
for my very own. And down I flops on the parlor sofy and says I: "There!
don't talk superstition to ME no more! A person that can foretell Uncle
Issy's givin' anybody a cent, let alone nine hundred dollars, is a good
enough prophet for ME to tie to. Now I KNOW that I'm going to marry the
dark-complected man, and I'll be ready for him when he comes along.
I never spent a quarter no better than when I handed it over to that
Oriental Seer critter at the Cattle Show." That's what I said then and I
b'lieve it yet. Wouldn't you feel the same way?'

"I said sure thing I would. I'd found out that the best way to keep
Effie's talk shop runnin' was to agree with her. And I liked to hear her
talk.

"'Yup,' she went on, 'I give right in then. I'd traveled same as the
fortune teller said, and I'd got more money'n I ever expected to see,
let alone own. And ever sence I've been sartin as I'm alive that the
feller I marry will be of a rank higher'n mine and dark complected and
good-lookin' and distinguished, and that he'll be name of Butler.'

"'Butler?' says I. 'What will he be named Butler for?'

"''Cause the Seer critter said so. He said he could see the word Butler
printed out over the top of my