ccord since I started
on this trip, nor any other girl, for that matter, so I can't for the
land sakes see why I have been havin' her poked at me so continual!
'Course there wouldn't be sense in me denyin' that I have a hankerin'
for girls; flesh and blood, 'ceptin' yours, Miner Hobbs, cannot deny the
kind we raise in Kentucky. However, they ain't been on my mind this
trip. Old King Solomon done a lot of things besides havin' a thousand
wives--they was his recreation. He builded a temple and founded a nation
and wrote pretty nigh the greatest poetry heard in these parts."

Here the speaker commenced pulling at the damp earth to hide his
embarrassment, and then made a pretence of examining the soil that came
up in his hand.

"It's the 'Second Song of Solomon' I'm meanin', Miner, and I've already
told you you ain't goin' to comprehend me when I do explain," he
continued patiently, "but bein's as it's you, I reckon I've got to try.
It's that song about spring. Ever since I was a little boy and first
heard it, why it began a-callin' me to get away for a little space to
myself to try and kind of hear things grow. It's a disappointin' reason
for me sneakin' off, ain't it, and foolish? I wish I had been doin'
somethin' with more snap to it, just to gratify Pennyroyal. But at
first, you see, I didn't mean nothin' in particular by not tellin',
knowin' that folks would think my real reason outlandish, but by and by
when the town got so all-fired curious and kept sayin' I was up to
different sorts of mischief, I just thought I'd keep 'em guessin'." Now
the long face was quivering in its eagerness to make things clear. "Why,
it seems to me from the time that the first green tips come peepin' up
between the stubble in the winter fields I kin hear that Solomon Song
a-beatin' and a-beatin' in my ears. 'Rise up, my love, my fair one, and
come away. For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the
flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds has come,
and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.'"

But poor Miner was making a cup for his ear with his hand. "But turtles
ain't voices, Ambrose, that anybody knows of," he murmured dimly; "it's
frogs we hear croakin' along the river bank."

And this time Ambrose laughed to himself. "It's croaks you're always
hearin', old fellow, ain't it?" he whispered affectionately. And
then--"I reckon it makes no difference to me whether it's a frog or a
turtle, a bird