other enough to move away from the old
farm. Then their wives died 'bout a year from each other. They kep' kind
o' friendly to the last, but they couldn't stir their husbands no more'n
if they was safes--it seems, sometimes, as if husbands and wives was
sort o' too near one another, when it comes to movin', to git any kind
of a purchase. When Reuben's wife died, folks said they'd have to git
reconciled now; and when Stephen's died, there didn't seem anythin' else
for 'em to do; but folks didn't know 'em. Stephen went up country where
his wife come from and brought home a little gal, that was her niece, to
keep house for him; and then what did Reuben do but go down to Zoar,
where _his_ wife come from, and git her half-sister--both of 'em young,
scart little things, and no kin to one another--and _they_ can't do
nothin' even if they wanted to. Bad-tempered? Wal, no. I wouldn't say
the Granger twins was bad-tempered;" and the biographer dexterously
removed a fly from his horse's patient back. "They're sot, of course,
but they ain't what they used to be--I guess it's been a sort of
discipline to 'em--livin' next door and never takin' no kind of notice.
They're pleasant folks to have dealin's with, and I've had both of 'em
ask me if I cal'lated it was goin' to rain, when I've been goin'
by--different times, o' course--but it 'most knocked the wind out of me
when they done it, 'stead of givin' me p'inters. Yes, you never can
speak to 'em both at once, 'cause the other one never hears if ye do;
but there! it ain't much trouble to say a thing over twice--most of us
say it more'n that 'fore we can git it 'tended to; and," he added, as he
leaned forward and dropped the whip into its socket preparatory to
turning into his own yard, "most of us hears it more'n once."

"Monroe," called a voice from the porch, "did you bring them calves?"

"Yare," said Monroe.

"I told you if you stopped to bring 'em, you wouldn't be home till after
dark."

"Wal?"

"I told you 't would be dark and you'd be late to supper."

"Wal?" and Monroe took down the end of the wagon, and persuaded out the
calves.

The person who was Monroe's companion and the recipient of his
confidences was a young woman who was an inmate of his house for the
present month of September.

Confident and somewhat audacious in her conduct of life, Cynthia Gardner
had felt that this September existence lacked a motive for energy before
it brought her into contact with the