"Always at work, rain or shine," he said, lightly, as she glanced up and smiled a cheery greeting.
"I've hit it right on these goobers, Alfred," she said. "I pulled up a vine the other day and washed it in the branch. I'm keeping it for the fair at Carlton. It is a dandy; the goobers on it are as thick as beads on a strand, and already as big as your thumb. Folks laughed at me for putting in five acres in this ground, but I knew what I was about. If they go high this fall, I'll make up for the loss on my wheat and hay."
"From the looks of things yesterday," he said, "it don't seem like you'll have to bother much more about raising anything."
"I saw you looking at us," she returned, gravely. "In fact, I saw everybody in the house. It was an awful day, Alfred, and I wouldn't go through another like it for no sap-headed man that ever walked the earth. I was up before the break of day, scrubbing, sweeping, baking by candle-light, and what was it all for--good gracious, what was it for? For weeks I'd counted on it as a great event, just to feel, down in my heart when it was all over, like a big fool."
"Why, I thought--I supposed--" Henley began in perplexity, but she interrupted him.
"I hate sham, Alfred, and that whole thing was sham--sham, sham, from first to last. Because I've been beat down and sneered at all this time by a silly woman, and because my burden of life looked hard, I let myself be tempted. Do you know, I believe Providence is trying to pound some sense into me. I felt kind o' bad a year ago when that feller didn't come to time, but, Alfred, I know myself better than I did then. I thought I'd have stood up at the altar with a man I never saw, but I'll bet now that I'd have backed out at the sight of him. I was blinded the same way about this last one. When you told me about him, in your kind way, I thought he was just what I was looking for, but when you fetched him to me that day at Carlton it was an awful comedown. I can't explain it to you, but, somehow, I felt like he was butting in with his big head and loud voice between me and another one I was expecting."
"I see, I see. Long don't quite fill the bill," Henley said. "I was afraid there might be a hitch somewhere, and he has all the essentials, too--that is, I mean--" But Henley hardly knew what he meant.