a
lot o' odd dimes in taking notes to the gals. About ten years from now
you'll be spending _your_ money that way. You must hear a lot o' funny
things if you see much o' Carrie. I'd give a pretty to be near her when
she got word from some man or other. She's waited a long time, Johnny. I
reckon a proposal at this late day would tickle her to death."

"I don't tote notes for nobody." The boy was white about the lips, and
looking as if he hardly knew whether to be angry or not.

"Well, I reckon you wouldn't to Carrie," Henley said. "I hardly reckon
anybody has her in mind, now. You know she's been a drug on the market a
long time. I wonder if she ever told you about that tin-peddler? It was
away back, I reckon, when you was playing with your rattler. Carrie and
the peddler had up an awful case--they was going to get married, and
open up a tin-shop at Carlton, but a man come along and said the peddler
already had a wife or two to his credit, and the skunk changed his
route. Lawsy me! how Carrie did take on! We heard her yelling like a
knife was sticking in her clean to the sorgum-mill."

"It's a lie! I don't believe a word of it," the boy cried, his face
aflame with fury. "She told me she never had a sweetheart in her
life--that she hated men."

"She's had good cause," answered Henley. "A woman that don't get a speck
of attention will hate anything. I reckon she's passed the line, and
nobody will marry her."

"She's going to marry _me_," the boy blurted out, leaning over and
striking the desk with his fist, as if to emphasize his words, "and when
she's my wife I'll call and make you settle for what you've said.
Remember that, sir." And he turned and strode angrily from the store.

"I hated to say it," Henley mused, "but I was doing it for the lasting
good of all concerned. It won't do--it simply won't do. That meddlesome
old maid simply shall not ruin that boy's life and break his old mammy's
heart. I wonder--" He sat staring at the floor for several minutes, and
then a smile disturbed the stern lines of his face. "It might work--by
gum, I'll try it, anyway!"

Glancing down to the front, he saw that Cahews was disengaged and seated
on the end of a counter swinging his long legs to and fro. Henley went
to him.

"Say, Jim, Johnny Cartwright and Carrie Wade is driving his mammy mighty
nigh distracted with their doings. I don't know when I've ever been so
sorry for an old person. I wonder if me and you couldn't put ou