lity.

A hound-dog stuck his wistful face into the door, seeking an invitation
to enter.

"Dar's a frien' in need," the bridegroom proclaimed happily. "Come here,
dawg!"

"Git out o' here!" the woman shrieked, kicking at the hound and sending
him out with a howl. "I don't want dat houn' in dis house scratchin' his
fleas all over de rooms. Look at de mud dat dawg tracked in. Come wadin'
through de bayou an' den come trackin' through de house!"

"Dar's some advantages in livin' a dawg's life, Pearline," Plaster
sighed. "Even excusin' de fleas, dar's plenty advantage. A dawg, even a
married dawg, he ain't tied up all de time an' kin run aroun' some."

"You aims to say you's gittin' tired stayin' here wid me?" Pearline
snapped.

"No'm. Nothin' like dat. I's happy as a mosquiter on a pickaninny's
nose."

"Ef you feels tied up like a houn'-dawg in de middle of de secont day,
how does you expeck to feel in de middle of de secont year?"

Plaster thought it best not to venture a reply. He looked through the
open door at the hound, lying under the china-berry tree in the glare,
placidly scratching fleas, bumping the elbow of his hind leg on the soft
ground as he scratched.

"Don't you never answer no 'terrogations when I axes you?" Pearline
asked sharply. "How you gwine feel in de middle of de secont year?"

Out of sheer perversity Plaster was disposed to tell her that he would
feel dead and buried for at least a year before the time she mentioned,
but instead he swallowed hard three times. His throat was dry and his
tongue rasped his mouth like sandpaper. His answer, finally, was a song:

"She'll be sweeter as de days go by;
She'll git sweeter as de moments fly;
She'll git sweeter an' be dearer
As to me she draws mo' nearer--
Sweeter as de days go by."

Thereupon Pearline jumped from her chair, got strangle-hold upon her
husband, sat down on him, and impressed him forcibly in the next
half-hour that his wife was a heavyweight and the day was extremely
warm.

Plaster made such a hit with his improvised song that he repeated it
three times, then gradually eased his wife off his lap and onto a chair.

"Don't you never shave yo' face, Plaster?" the lady asked when the love
scene ended. "You feels like a stubby shoe-brush."

"No'm, my whiskers don't pester me none."

"But dey looks so bad," the woman urged.

"I cain't see 'em," Plaster grinned.

"I wants you to shave eve'y day while you is