Dixie Hart

ey took his chair into the passage, and, without his coat, he leaned back against the weather-boarding and lighted his pipe. He had not been there long when hi

as so unexpected, so unheard-of, so plumb disrespectful, that it hurt me. He said you told hi

control his rising temper. "I can't be responsible for the slap

nley pursued, probingly. "He never makes up t

you intended to do, and holding me up to ridicule, and I reckon I did say that I wouldn't be here-that my business would keep m

what you've thought all along about Pa and Ma being here, and me lovin

e could you expect?" Henley aske

s. "You told me before we were married that you'd promise never to object-you even said you admired me for my feelings, and that it

y what I was doing when I made it, but I've kept it. As for attending his-his funeral s

nything to be ashamed of in your being there? Would a divine serv

by mourners, and, well, where would I come in? I reckon my proper seat would be with you and the-the rest of the family on the front bench, if it was anywhere. It would look funny for me just to be a looker-on

eat and wear, and actually begrudge the little mite of respect that is paid to the helpless dead. In being overpersuaded and marrying you I wa

t-got mixed up in it, if it was done at all," Henley

this man come along and told me; but that is no reason I shouldn't make amends, late as it is. It is all the better proof that Dick is remembered. But you can go to Texas.

away," Henley said, doggedly. "The

e gaunt woman cried, as she whirled

ch he was taking to the pigpen, descended the short flight of steps, and turned back toward Henley. He stood for a moment hesitatingly, the pail wiping its dripping exterior against his baggy jean trousers. Then

ed Wrinkle on the grass and they walked down the path tog

her-in-law strained his lungs to say, and he grunted as he raised the pail to the top r

a trowel. "The truth is, Alf, I've got an apology to make to you, and I didn't want to do it up thar before them women. The other day when I said that about old Welborne a-sendin' you a bunch o' flowers to decorate Dick's grave I wasn't actually thinkin' about you as much as

re you are startin' in to apologize for a thing and going o

s goin' on to say that I was jest thinkin' of old Welborne's quick wit in every emergency that set me to wonderin' that day how he might act in sech a case. They say everything is grist to his mill-that he turns every single thing that drifts his way into profit great or small. And that day after you railed out at me in the store I went across the Square to see how yore joke would terminate. The door of his dingy little office was open, an' I could see the grave-rock man insid

y,' says he, 'fer an hour jest to find that he was settin' thar all the time figurin

Hank makes all manner of sport of his uncle behind the old skunk's back. He told a tale, too, that I'd never heard. It seems that old Welborne's mother-in-law died, and

for seventy-fiv

he undertaker said, 'b

d. 'My father-in-law won't last long. I'll take one now

ure. "That is just like him," he sai

a fence around it with a main gate that had a big curvin' sign over it with the words 'Sunnyside Cemetery' on it, and I'm told that he has been all over town tellin' folks that the old graveyard is too low and soggy to be half decent, and that his'n was a great improvement. He intimated, too, that nobody but blue-bloods could git the'r names enrolled, and thar has been a power

she-I suppo

square under a weepin'-willow, which he said had a rock bottom and the best view of the town. It only set her back two hundred round plugs, but she had that much left in the bank, and seems powerful well, satisfied. I wouldn't 'a'

ce to Welborne's part of the transaction. "Any man can get money out of

ough him that we are provided for-in fact, he was so wishy-washy and helpless that we was glad to have him tie up with a woman that had a few dollars. He went in for a high old time, and he had it. I couldn't object-I was that way myself. He was as bad after gals as a drummer, and in his sparkin' days, as maybe you know, he could have had his pick. I couldn't keep from hearin' you an' Hettie talkin' in the passag

it," Henley said, frigidly, and he glan

for me, I never was able to see how Het cou

norted. "I never was jealous of

to the claim, as he took up his pail and started back to the ho

ithin a few yards of Dixie Hart's cottage, and he suddenly heard her voice. She was speaking to some one. Peering through the deepening darkness, which was broken on

at," Bradley was heard to say, in a gruff, pleadin

Henley heard her answer, as she stood well away from the fence. "I've

ley stock hold on like bulldogs. When they take a notion to anything they want it, and they keep on till they get it. So look out,

e any more," Dixie sai

He heard Bradley stifle a surly exclamation of disappointment,

can touch 'er. And she's going to get married! She is going into the treacherous thing absolutely blindfolded, and the Lord only knows what will come of it.