ff with the
answer and a big bunch of roses Carrie gathered and sent with it, when
she run over to tell me about it and to borrow my cape. She 'lowed it
mought be cool drivin' back behind sech a fast hoss as Jim's new one,
an' she didn't have a thing heavy enough to throw over her shoulders.
Johnny was a-settin' in the corner of the kitchen unbeknownst to her,
and heard all she said. An', la me, what you reckon he done? He up an'
laid down law an' gospel right on the spot, bless you! Jim Cahews wasn't
goin' a step with 'er. Johnny could afford to hire a livery-stable team
if he had to borrow the money, an' _he_ was goin' to take 'er."

"That was a corker, wasn't it?" Henley exclaimed, with a pleased laugh.
"What did Carrie say to that?"

"Looked like she hardly knowed what _to_ say," was the old woman's
reply. "Him an' her stood starin' smack dab at each other fer a minute,
and then--just think of it!--she begun to beg the boy not to interfere
with her doin's, and pleaded an' wheedled an' went on at a powerful
rate. But Johnny stood as firm as the rock o' Gibralty, an' told 'er, he
did, that his plighted wife jest shouldn't run about an' disgrace 'em
right on the eve of marriage, and said a lot about folks walkin' over
dead bodies an' swimmin' rivers o' blood, an' the like. Well, all that
finally made Carrie mad, an' she told 'im he was jest a boy, an' that
she had never meant to marry 'im, nohow. An' while he stood gaspin' fer
breath she lit in to beggin' him not to tell nobody about the'r little
flirtation. She said folks would think it was silly of her, an' if Jim
Cahews meant business, which it looked like he did, a tale like that
might sp'ile her chances."

"Huh," grunted Henley, "she was getting down to bedrock, wasn't she?"

"Well, I don't blame 'er," said the widow, charitably. "Many a good,
married woman wouldn't want all her girlish pranks to reach the ear of
the man she finally settled down with, an' I reckon Jim Cahews wants
'er. They say he's tired chasin' after Julia Hardcastle, an' Carrie may
suit. Johnny tuck it awful hard. After she went home he come an' laid
his head in my lap an' sobbed out good an' strong. I was never tickled
by grief of a child o' mine before; but even while my eyes an' throat
was full, a laugh would rise in me that I couldn't hold in. But he
didn't catch on--he 'lowed I was cryin', too. After a while he set up
an' wiped his eyes. 'I reckon,' said he, 'that I've been the fool
ev