entions with gifts of books. I knew of one. So it did not require
much guessing on my part to divine the cause of Perry's heart-sickness;
but as long as the other persons in his drama were anonymities, he
would speak freely, so I relieved him by declaring solemnly that never
in the world could I guess. I had always supposed him a lover of all
women, a slave of none.

Perry smiled.

"I have kep' a good deal of company," he said. "On account of my
fiddlin', and singin', and recitin' I've always had things pretty much
my own way. It's opposition that's ruination. That's what shatters a
man's heart and takes all his sperrit. As long as the game's between
just a man and a girl there's nothin' very serious. One or the other
loses, and you can begin a new game somewheres else. But when two men
and one girl get a playin' three handed, then it is serious; then it's
desperate. A man has to th'ow his whole heart and mind into it, if
he'd whip, and he gets so worked up he thinks his whole happiness to
the end of time depends on his drivin' the other fellow to drownin'
himself in the mill-dam."

"In other words, if you had not found another laying piles of books and
such gifts at the feet of this fair one, whose name I can never guess,
you would have fiddled to her and sung to her and recited to her until
she said 'I love you.' Then you would have sought new heavens to
conquer."

"That's about it," said Perry, smiling feebly. His face brightened.
"You know how it is yourself, Mark. Mind how you kep' company once
with Emily Holmes and nothin' come of it. She went off to normal
school in desperation--you mind that, don't ye?--and she married a
school-teacher from Snyder County--you mind that, don't ye? Now
supposin' you and that Snyder County chap had been opposin' one another
instead of you and Emily Holmes--I allow her name would have been
changed to Emily Hope long ago, or you'd 'a' drownded yourself."

"But I never had any intention of marrying Emily Holmes," I protested.

"I know you didn't," Perry replied, thumping the table in triumph.
"That's just the pint. If the world was popilated by one man and one
woman, they'd be a bachelor and an old maid. If there was two men and
one woman, then one of the men would marry the old maid sure."

"Your meaning is more clear," I said.

Though Perry did not know it, I was meeting the same opposition that so
aroused his ire. In part there was truth in what he said,