“I stopped, fer he’d leaned back, an’ was lookin’ at the ceilin’ an’ laughin’ an’ laughin’.
“Be the twinkle in his eye I seen how he’d fooled me, an’ I set down feelin’ smaller than a bunty hen.
“‘Ye see,’ sais he, ‘I was comin’ th’oo the flats this mornin’ after I’d ben fishin’ trout up in the big run, an’ ez I passed Horner’s I noticed a most remarkable sight. There was Pet Horner a-nailin’ shingles on the barn roof while a strange man set on a chicken-coop smokin’. I sais to meself, I sais, ‘Ef that’s the way he gits a missus, I’ll do the housework tell me dyin’ day.’
“The ole man wasn’t laughin’ now. He was on a subject that was wery dear to him. His woice was husky with earnestness.
“‘Why don’t ye spruce up?’ he sais. ‘Can’t ye chop wood fer her, or churn fer her, or pick some stone offen the clearin’ fer her? Unly do somethin’ to show her ye ain’t the laziest man in the walley. Show her your right side.’
“‘Pap,’ sais I, ‘’hen my Missus takes me I wants her to know me jest ez I am, not as I otter be. Ef there’s any lettin’ on afore the weddin’ there’ll be no lettin’ up after it.’
“With that I gits up an’ walks outen the house, whistlin’ fer Major.
“Him an’ me went up to Horner’s together. We found her churnin’, an’ set down in the grass an’ watched. Ez I watched I got to thinkin’ over what the ole man hed sayd. I seen that perhaps he was right; that I’d git her quicker ef I worked harder. The pictur of gittin’ her quicker almost made me git up an’ do the churnin’. But I thot agin. Ef I churned now I’d hev to churn allus or else I’d be cheatin’ her. Ef she knowd she was takin’ a man who was agin the wery suggestion’ she’d never hev no cause to complain. So I jest lay there chewin’ a straw an’ lookin’.
“That’s the way I done me courtin’ day after day all that summer. It was slow. Mighty, but it was slow! Sometim’s I got discouraged an’ thot the eend was never comin’ an’ I’d better give up. Then she’d drop a word or a look or somethin’ that kind o’ kep’ me hangin’ on. It seemed like she was gittin’ used to me. We seldom sayd anything, fer she was a thinkin’ woman. Fer me, I remembered how Pap allus allowed it was less dangerous fer a man to put a boy in charge o’ his saw-mill than to let his heart run his tongue. So I set an’ sayd nawthin’, but looked a heap.