Sally and David were laughing helplessly by the time they had taken seats at the pine table in the corner. "Proving you're never as important as you think you are," David chuckled. "Let's see. 'Place of residence?' I suppose we'll have to put Capital City. But that chap certainly doesn't give a continental who we are or where we're from. We're all in the day's work with him, thank heaven. Don't forget to put your age at eighteen, darling."
When they presented their filled-in and signed application for a marriage license, the clerk accepted it with supreme indifference, glancing at it and drew a stack of marriage license blanks toward him. As he began to write in the names, however, he frowned thoughtfully, then peered through the bars of his cage at the blushing, frightened couple.
"Your names sound awfully familiar to me," he puzzled. "Where you from? Capital City? Say, you're the kids that got into a row with a farmer and busted his leg, ain't you?"
Sally pressed close to David, her hands locking tightly over his arm, but David, as if he did not understand her signal, answered the clerk in a steady voice: "Yes, we are."
"I read all about you in the papers," the clerk went on in a strangely friendly voice. "I reckon your story made a deep impression on me because I was raised in an orphans' home myself and ran away when I was fourteen. I hoped at the time that you kids would make a clean get-away. I see the young lady's had a couple of birthdays in the last month," he grinned and winked. "Eighteen now, eh?"
"Yes," Sally quavered and then laughed, the lid of her right eye fluttering slowly down until the two fringes of black lashes met and entangled.
The clerk's pen scratched busily. "All right, youngsters. Here you are. Justice of the peace wedding?"
"We'd rather be married by a minister," David answered as he laid a $20 bill under the wicket and reached for the marriage license.
"That's easy," the clerk assured him heartily. "Like every county seat, Canfield's got her 'marrying parson.' Name of Greer. He's building a new church out of the fees that the eloping couples pay him. Lives on Chestnut street. White church and parsonage. Five blocks up Main street and turn to your right, then walk a block and a half. You can't miss it. And good luck, kids. You'll need lots of it."