Dixie Hart

, as the two were finishing a game of checkers on a board from which the squares were almost obli

e's too much for me. We ain't a bit nigher the altar than we was a year a

ympathetically. "I felt sorry for you. She looked mighty chipper in her finery as you wh

ttle down. Sometimes I git blue and think she is just holding me as a safe thing to land on while she looks the field over. I have to stay h

addy-in-law say that a woman was born to be commanded, and when they ain't they hop to t'other extreme and just loll about in their

el like you are sinking down in a mire whenever she looks you in the eyes. No, Alf, not to a gal as purty and sweet as a bunch of roses, and that knows it, and is in the habit o' being told of it

ms to me-now, at least-that if I was out on the hunt for a helpmeet I'd look to the solid qualities in a woman just as I would in a man I wanted to work with. I'd study her characte

that song till they bury their wives, and then they turn to boys ag

e last assertion. His eyes rested thoughtfully on a sunny spot

le's daughter. I wouldn't talk to just any stray person this away, Alf, but me and you was boys together, and you've always been my friend. She's got me, Alf-I don't

terruption brought about by the arrival of a stranger who entered the front door and came back to them with swift, steady strides. He w

to git the only true and artistic thing in marble. I'm agent for the Adamantyne Tombstone Company, of Tennessee. We own the only quarry of snow-white, non-grit, pristyne Parian rock on this side of the blue ocean, and we have in our employ the best

efore Henley, whose eyes were twinkling

would have to be so cheap that a dead man would kick it off of his grave in disgust. You've got in the wro

seemed to recognize the stranger, for the two exchanged nods of greeting. "I'm still at it, you see," the salesman said. "I'm going to give all a chance. H

g in that line," Cahe

nt on to the salesman, after another sly wink at Cahews, "none of us here happen to want anything in your line, but there is a rich old codger across the way-Mr. Silas Welborne-who will trade if you'll stick to him long enough. He's got dead kin with no sort o' tags on 'em. You might have to tal

closed his book. "I'll look him up. I'm doing a big business here. Your people don

ertone he said to Wrinkle and Cahews: "I'd give a pretty to see this oily-tongued chap holding down that crusty old miser. A to

and old Wrinkle sat down in the chair just va

t as I stood thar hearin' you concoct it I couldn't help thinking if you knowed what a joke this self-sam

incredulously, his face falling into seriousnes

porch and begun his palaver. He has a different way with women than he has with men. He seems to know that women are soft on some lines, and chiefly on preachin' and buryin'. He'd picked up a list of folks round about here that had lost kin, and he had me and Jane down on it on account of Dick. Now, it seems that when he gits to a

" Henley fro

ctually flabbergasted, and didn't know what to say. But he was game, and knowed thar was some way out of his trouble. He said, 'Wait a minute-don't bother me!' an' he shet his eyes tight, an' set thar with his head hangin' down for fully five minutes. Then he looked up an' said, 'I was jest tryin' to recall the good lady's name that had the same trouble, pine blank, as your'n, but it slips me somehow.' An' with that he said it was the custom all over civilized Christendom, in such cases as our'n, to e

d-" Henley began, but his voice trailed away into indist

n way about it, and then I couldn't help but be fair and think if I'd been in Dick's place they would have gone through exactly the same antics, an' been jest as liberal in showing due respect. Hettie says it is all to come out of her own money that she had when she married you. She was particular to mention the fact, and I think that showed a sensible streak, for a fool would know you oughtn't to be expected to stand sech expense, and so long after you took her, and that being a thing that wo

at man had got off on me, is it?

alled a good one on old Tight-fist just now by puttin' this chap on his track, and I reckon you'd have no call to git mad if Welborne made it tit for tat an' fired back at you. You wouldn't be justified in ki

grily. "I don't care what them two silly women do. I'll not be here to

ve 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

ld man, Henley joined

ould kick him," he said, in an angry underto

er love to hear 'im chatter. Some o' the things he says a

gh of a thing is a plenty, and while I'm away-" but Wrinkle had approached, and, passin

out o' this jar sence I was here Monday. I laid one crossways on top just to see. I'd order a fresh lot