heats, till the po' gal was
nearly crazy, an' when I finally got it into her head that if it was
a busted blood vessel with the old man, it was a busted heart with
me, she cried a little mo' an' consented to run off with me an' take
the chances of the village doctor cuppin' the old man at the right
time.

"The old lady was on my side and helped things along. I had
everything fixed even to the moon which was shinin' jes' bright
enough to carry us to the Justice's without a lantern, some three
miles away, an' into the nex' county.

"I'll never forgit how the night looked as I rode over after her, how
the wild-flowers smelt, an' the fresh dew on the leaves. I remember
that I even heard a mockin'-bird wake up about midnight as I tied my
hoss to a lim' in the orchard nearby, an' slipped aroun' to meet
Kathleen at the bars behin' the house. It was a half mile to the
house an' I was slippin' through the sugar-maple trees along the path
we'd both walked so often befo' when I saw what I thought was
Kathleen comin' towards me. I ran to meet her. It wa'n't Kathleen,
but her mother--an' she told me to git in a hurry, that the old man
knew all, had locked Kathleen up in the kitchen, turned the brindle
dog loose in the yard, an' was hidin' in the woods nigh the barn,
with his gun loaded with bird-shot, an' that if I went any further
the chances were I'd not sit down agin for a year. She had slipped
around through the woods just to warn me.

"Of course I wanted to fight an' take her anyway--kill the dog an'
the old man, storm the kitchen an' run off with Kathleen in my arms
as they do in novels. But the old lady said she didn't want the dog
hurt--it being a valuable coon-dog,--and that I was to go away out of
the county an' wait for a better time.

"It mighty nigh broke me up, but I decided the old lady was right an'
I'd go away. But 'long towards the shank of the night, after I had
put up my hoss, the moon was still shinin', an' I cudn't sleep for
thinkin' of Kathleen. I stole afoot over to her house just to look at
her window. The house was all quiet an' even the brindle dog was
asleep. I threw kisses at her bed-room window, but even then I cudn't
go away, so I slipped around to the barn and laid down in the hay to
think over my hard luck. My heart ached an' burned an' I was nigh
dead with love.

"I wondered if I'd ever get her, if they'd wean her from me, an' give
her to the rich little feller whose fine farm j'ined the old