or she was countin' on a wonderful
display of poetry and highfalutin' things that would be remembered
an' placed to her credit for a long time afterwards. He got his
foot in it several times. Once I heard Hettie sniff mighty nigh
loud enough for him to hear it. It was when he said life wasn't
what it was cracked up to be, nohow, and he didn't doubt that Dick
was a sight better off where he was at than here in this earthly
wrangle. I thought to myself, I wonder what Alf would say in his
far-off retreat to a statement of that sort.

"The marble monument looks all right in Welborne's new graveyard,
an' he has a right to be proud of his enterprise. The ground is
bein' mapped off in great shape. He's had grass sowed all over it
and laid out avenues and sidewalks, and thar's some talk of a
fountain.

"That Dixie Hart's a corker. She's not mealy-mouthed about
anything. The day before the funeral Hettie was talkin' to her at
the cow-lot, and axed Dixie if she was goin' to take it in. Dixie
quit milchin', and stood up straight and said: 'No, I've got better
sense, and you ought to be ashamed of yoreself. You've got a good
husband, and you don't appreciate him nigh enough.'

"I thought it was funny that Het didn't fly off the handle, but she
stood and tuck it, and seemed to be set back a peg or two. Me 'n
her went to the house together, an' I looked for her to rail out on
me, anyway, but she set on the porch like she had a lot to think
about till bed-time. I made up my mind then that Het jest loves to
do things that other folks don't approve of, an' that Dixie had set
'er to wonderin' if she hadn't gone a little bit too far.

"But the old gal is all right. She has tuck a new turn, as I wrote
you in my last. She keeps boarders in the two spare rooms mighty
nigh all the time, and she is figurin' expenses purty close.
Sometimes it is a rovin' peddler at day-rates or a fruit-tree agent
by the week. I can't say I like it overly much--though thar is
somebody to talk to at odd times when they are through work--for
she don't seem to feed quite as well when she's bein' paid as
before money begun to come in. She seems to want to lay up scads
for some reason or other; maybe it is to try to git back the cash
she has spent on her odd notion. I don't know, an' I a