leasant to lean over and watch him at work
making things for the little house--a chair from a barrel and a
wonderful box of shelves to stand in the corner. And she knew how to
say merry things, and later outside his door Ben would pick his banjo
and sing low and sweetly in the musical voice of his race. Altogether
such another honeymoon there had never been.

For once the old women hushed up their prophecies of evil, although in
the beginning they had shaken their wise old turbaned heads and
predicted that marriage with such a flighty creature as Viney could
come to no good. They had said among themselves that Ben would better
marry some good, solid-minded, strong-armed girl who would think more
about work than about pleasures and coquetting.

"I 'low, honey," an old woman had said, "she'll mek his heart ache
many a time. She'll comb his haid wid a three-legged stool an' bresh
it wid de broom. Uh, huh--putty, is she? You ma'y huh 'cause she
putty. Ki-yi! She fix you! Putty women fu' putty tricks."

And the old hag smacked her lips over the spice of malevolence in her
words. Some women--and they are not all black and ugly--never forgive
the world for letting them grow old.

But, in spite of all prophecies to the contrary, two months of
unalloyed joy had passed for Ben and Viney, and to-night the climax
seemed to have been reached. Ben hurried along, talking to himself as
his hoe swung over his shoulder.

"Kin I do it?" he was saying. "Kin I do it?" Then he would stop his
walk and his cogitations would bloom into a mirthful chuckle.
Something very pleasant was passing through his mind.

As he approached, Viney was standing in the door of the little cabin,
whose white sides with green Madeira clambering over them made a
pretty frame for the dark girl in her print dress. The husband bent
double at sight of her, stopped, took off his hat, slapped his knee,
and relieved his feelings by a sounding "Who-ee!"

"What's de mattah wid you, Ben? You ac' lak you mighty happy. Bettah
come on in hyeah an' git yo' suppah fo' hit gits col'."

For answer, the big fellow dropped the hoe and, seizing the slight
form in his arms, swung her around until she gasped for breath.

"Oh, Ben," she shrieked, "you done tuk all my win'!"

"Dah, now," he said, letting her down; "dat's what you gits fu'
talkin' sassy to me!"

"Nev' min'; I'm goin' to fix you fu' dat fus' time I gits de
chanst--see ef I don't."

"Whut you gwine do? Gwine t