Cheeseman; don't!"

The old man groaned. "I'm a woodenhead, friend Parks; a plumb, dum old
woodenhead!" he said; "but I won't add another lie to that one. I did
believe it, and I've been half sick about it all day. I won't say
another word till you set down, except to ask your pardon again. I'm an
old man, Calvin," he added, with a piteous quaver in his voice, "and I
regard you as a son, sir!"

Calvin sat down instantly, and laid his hand on the old man's arm for a
moment.

"That's all right, Mr. Cheeseman!" he said briefly but kindly. "We'll
forget that part. Now let's get on to the rest on't."

Mr. Cheeseman drew a long breath that was almost a sob, and his frosty
blue eyes were dim for a moment. He wiped them quietly with a blue
cotton handkerchief.

"I thank you, sir!" he said. "Well, I found the whole street buzzin'
with it yesterday. They said you gave her a fur tippet. How was that,
friend Calvin?"

"I did!" Calvin's brown face flushed.

"I just plain fool did. She as good as asked me for it, Mr. Cheeseman,
and what could I do? If ever I gredged money in my life 'twas that, and
me turnin' every cent twice to make it go further. But when she went on
about her brown keeters, and the doctor sayin' she must wrop her throat
up, and if only she could have a fur tippet it might save her life--and
goin' so fur as to name the special one she wanted in Hoskins's
window--and Christmas time and all, and nobody seemin' to have any
feelin' for them two forlorn creatur's--Mr. Cheeseman, if you're a
woodenhead, I'm a sheep's-head, that's all there is to it. So that
started the talk, did it? What in caniption makes folks want to talk I
don't know!" he broke out. "Darn their hides!"

"That started it!" said Mr. Cheeseman; "and she has seen to it that the
talk went on. She was in town all day yesterday, flyin' round like a hen
with her head cut off--"

"She'd look a sight better with hers that way!" said Calvin _sotto
voce_.

"Buyin' this and that, and givin' folks to understand 'twas her weddin'
things. I don't know as she used them precise words, but I do know she
said to Hoskins--she was in there gettin' some dress goods, and he told
me himself--'I'll take the blue,' she says, "for Cap'n Parks admires
blue, and I have to dress to please him now!' she says."

Calvin Parks groaned. A vision rose before him of Mary Sands in her blue
dress, with the sun shining on her hair.

"Then she went to Jinny Bascom's," the old