h's surcease and levity, dressed in
the natural store habiliments of man. We hit this town of Los Pinos,
which certainly was a roof-garden spot of the world, and flowing with
condensed milk and honey. It had a street or two, and air, and hens,
and a eating-house; and that was enough for us.

"We strikes the town after supper-time, and we concludes to sample
whatever efficacy there is in this eating-house down by the railroad
tracks. By the time we had set down and pried up our plates with a
knife from the red oil-cloth, along intrudes Widow Jessup with the hot
biscuit and the fried liver.

"Now, there was a woman that would have tempted an anchovy to forget
his vows. She was not so small as she was large; and a kind of welcome
air seemed to mitigate her vicinity. The pink of her face was the _in
hoc signo_ of a culinary temper and a warm disposition, and her smile
would have brought out the dogwood blossoms in December.

"Widow Jessup talks to us a lot of garrulousness about the climate
and history and Tennyson and prunes and the scarcity of mutton, and
finally wants to know where we came from.

"'Spring Valley,' says I.

"'Big Spring Valley,' chips in Paisley, out of a lot of potatoes and
knuckle-bone of ham in his mouth.

"That was the first sign I noticed that the old _fidus Diogenes_
business between me and Paisley Fish was ended forever. He knew how I
hated a talkative person, and yet he stampedes into the conversation
with his amendments and addendums of syntax. On the map it was Big
Spring Valley; but I had heard Paisley himself call it Spring Valley
a thousand times.

"Without saying any more, we went out after supper and set on the
railroad track. We had been pardners too long not to know what was
going on in each other's mind.

"'I reckon you understand,' says Paisley, 'that I've made up my
mind to accrue that widow woman as part and parcel in and to my
hereditaments forever, both domestic, sociable, legal, and otherwise,
until death us do part.'

"'Why, yes,' says I, 'I read it between the lines, though you only
spoke one. And I suppose you are aware,' says I, 'that I have a
movement on foot that leads up to the widow's changing her name to
Hicks, and leaves you writing to the society column to inquire whether
the best man wears a japonica or seamless socks at the wedding!'

"'There'll be some hiatuses in your program,' says Paisley, chewing
up a piece of a railroad tie. 'I'd give in to you,' say