ast who's dealin' the
license game writes in my name, an' shoves the paper across. In a blur
of bliss I files it away in my jeans, mounts my hoss, an' goes
gambodin' back to Peggy, waitin' at ancestral Sni-a-bar.'

"'Is your Peggy sweetheart pretty?' asks Nell.

"'She's a lamp of loveliness! Sweet? Beetrees is gall an' wormwood to
her.

"'As to the weddin', it's settled Peggy an' me is to come flutterin'
from our respective perches the next day. Doubtless we'd have done so,
only them orange blossom rites strikes the onexpected an' goes
glancin' off.

"'It's the Campbellite preacher, who's been brought in to marry us,
that starts it. The play's to be made at Peggy's paw's house, after
which, for a weddin' trip, she an' me's to go wanderin' out torwards
the Shawnee Mission, whar I've got some kin. The parson, when he has
the entire outfit close-herded into the parlor, asks--bein' a car'ful
old practitioner--to see the license. I turns it over, an' he takes it
to the window to read. He gives that docyooment one look, an' then
glowers at me personal mighty baleful. "Miserable wretch," says he,
"do you-all want to get yourse'f tarred an' feathered?"

"'In my confoosion I thinks this outbreak is part of the cer'mony,
an' starts to say "I do!" Before I can edge in a word, however, he
calls over Peggy's old man. "Read that!" he cries, holdin' the license
onder old Pap Parks' nose. Old Parks reads, an' the next news I gets
he's maulin' me with his hickory walkin' stick like he's beatin' a
kyarpet.

"'Without waitin' to kiss the bride or recover my license, I simply
t'ars out the front of the house an' breaks for the woods. The next
day, old Parks takes to huntin' me with hounds. Nacherally, at this
proof of man's inhoomanity to man, I sneaks across into Kansas, an'
makes for the settin' sun.'

"'An' can't you give no guess,' says Enright, 'at why old Parks digs
up the waraxe so plumb sudden?'

"'No more'n rattlesnakes onborn, onless his inordinate glee at gettin'
me for a son-in-law has done drove him off his head.'

"'Which it couldn't be that,' says Enright, takin' a hard, thoughtful
look at the Turner person. Then, followin' a pause, he adds, 'thar's
some myst'ry yere!'

"'Ain't you-all made no try,' asks Nell, 'sech as writin' letters, or
some game sim'lar, to cl'ar things up?'

"'You-all don't know Pap Parks, Miss, in all his curves. Why, it's
lucky he ain't wearin' his old bowie at that weddin', or he'd a-sp