med the other. "What have you got to do with it?"

"A good deal," said Asaph. "If you get Marietta with her fifteen
hundred a year--and it wouldn't surprise me if it was eighteen
hundred--and her house and her garden and her cattle and her field
and her furniture, with not a leg loose nor a scratch, you will get
her because I proposed her to you, and because I backed you up
afterward. And now, then, I want to know what you are goin' to do
for me?"

"What do you want?" asked Thomas.

"The first thing I want," said Asaph, "is a suit of clothes. These
clothes is disgraceful."

"You are right there," said Mr. Rooper. "I wonder your sister lets
you come around in front of the house. But what do you mean by
clothes--winter clothes or summer clothes?"

"Winter," said Asaph, without hesitation. "I don't count summer
clothes. And when I say a suit of clothes, I mean shoes and hat and
underclothes."

Mr. Rooper gave a sniff. "I wonder you don't say overcoat," he
remarked.

"I do say overcoat," replied Asaph. "A suit of winter clothes is a
suit of clothes that you can go out into the weather in without
missin' nothin'."

Mr. Rooper smiled sarcastically. "Is there anything else you want?"
he asked.

"Yes," said Asaph, decidedly; "there is. I want a umbrella."

"Cotton or silk?"

Asaph hesitated. He had never had a silk umbrella in his hand in his
life. He was afraid to strike too high, and he answered, "I want a
good stout gingham."

Mr. Rooper nodded his head. "Very good," he said. "And is that all?"

"No," said Asaph, "it ain't all. There is one more thing I want, and
that is a dictionary."

The other man rose to his feet. "Upon my word," he exclaimed, "I
never before saw a man that would sell his sister for a dictionary!
And what you want with a dictionary is past my conceivin'."

"Well, it ain't past mine," said Asaph. "For more than ten years I
have wanted a dictionary. If I had a dictionary I could make use of
my head in a way that I can't now. There is books in this house, but
amongst 'em there is no dictionary. If there had been one I'd been a
different man by this time from what I am now, and like as not
Marietta wouldn't have wanted any other man in the house but me."

Mr. Rooper stood looking upon the ground; and Asaph, who had also
arisen, waited for him to speak. "You are a graspin' man, Asaph,"
said Thomas. "But there is another thing I'd like to know: if I give
you them clothes, you don't want