ike he'd got my refusal--Eb was one o' the kind that always
thinks, if it clouds up, 't the sun is down on 'em personally.

"'Oh,' s'I, bold an' swift, 'you great big ridiculous _man_!'

"An' I'm blest if he didn't agree to that.

"'I know I'm ridiculous,' s'he, noddin', sad. 'I know I'm that, Miss
Cally.'

"'Well, I didn't mean it that way,' s'I, reticent--an' said no more,
with the exception of what I'd rilly meant.

"'Why under the canopy,' I ask' him, for a hint, 'don't you take the Sum
Merriman store, an' run it, an' live on your feet? I ain't any patience
with a man,' s'I, 'that lives on his toes. Stomp some, why don't you,
an' buy that store?'

"An' his answer su'prised me.

"'I did ask Mis' Fire Chief fer the refusal of it,' he said. 'I ask' her
when I took my flowers to Sum, to-day--they was wild flowers I'd picked
myself,' he threw in, so's I wouldn't think spendthrift of him. 'An' I'm
to let her know this week, for sure.'

"'Glory, glory, glory,' s'I, under my breath--like I'd seen a rill live
soul, standin' far off on a hill somewheres, drawin' cuts to see whether
it should come an' belong to Eb, or whether it shouldn't.

XI

LONESOME.--II

"All that evenin' Eb an' Elspie an' I set by the cook stove, talkin',
an' they seemed to be plenty to talk about, an' the air in the room was
easy to get through with what you hed to say--it was that kind of an
evenin'. Eb was pretty quiet, though, excep' when he piped up to agree.
'Gettin' little too hot here, ain't it?' I know I said once; an' Eb see
right off he was roasted an' he spried 'round the draughts like mad. An'
a little bit afterwards I says, with malice the fourth thought: 'I can
feel my shoulders some chilly,' I says--an' he acted fair
chatterin'-toothed himself, an' went off headfirst for the woodpile. I
noticed that, an' laughed to myself, kind o' pityin'. But Elspie, she
never noticed. An' when it come time to lock up, I 'tended to my wrist
an' let them two do the lockin'. They seemed to like to--I could tell
that. An' Elspie, she let Eb out the front door herself, like they was
rill folks.

"Nex' day I was gettin' ready for Sum Merriman's funeral,--it was to be
at one o'clock,--when Elspie come in my room, sort o' shyin' up to me
gentle.

"'Miss Cally,' 's'she, 'do you think the mourners'd take it wrong if I's
to go to the funeral?'

"'Why, no, Elspie,' I says, su'prised; 'only what do you want to go
for?' I ask' her.

"'Oh,