any too high, but they don't live
any higher themselves. Phrony has the dyspepsy--I dono as it's
surprisin' that she should--and the old lady has an idee that eatin' is
a snare of the evil one, and she gits along on next door after nothin',
as you may say."

"The idea!" cried Mary Sands, indignantly. "Mr. Parks, why do you stay
there? I wouldn't if I was you, not another day."

"Oh! they don't mean no harm," said Calvin; "not a mite. I git on
first-rate so long as they do; it's only when they get to quarrellin'
that I mind. When they fall afoul of each other, it ain't real
agreeable; but there's where it comes in handy bein' a man. Hossy and
me can git out from under foot most times, and leave 'em to train by
themselves."

He paused, and shook his head with a reminiscent chuckle.

"Last week we had us quite a time!" he said. "Phrony got some kind of a
bee in her bunnet--I dono what it was! seemed to have a kind of idee
that she was goin' to git married, if only she had some money. I never
see no man round the house, nor yet heard none speak of her; and, too,
if she'd looked in the glass she'd have seen 'twarn't real reasonable to
expect it. However it was, so it was; she's got her eye on somebody, no
question about that. Well, it's a small farm, and the soil ain't any too
rich; they git along, but no more than, I expect; and yet they don't
spend a cent more'n they have to, you may resk your eye-teeth on that.
Well, anyways, here's what happened. I come in one night, and the old
lady was sittin' studyin' over a letter or like that. When she saw me,
'Cap'n,' she says (always calls me Cap'n, same as she did the old man),
'will you cast your eye over that,' she says, 'and tell me what you
think of it?'

"I looked it over, and you may call me a horn-pout, Miss Hands and boys,
if 'twarn't a bill from Phrony, drawed up in reg'lar style, chargin' her
mother three dollars a week wages for thirty years. Now, Miss Hands, I'd
like to know what you think of that."

"I think 'twas scandalous!" cried Mary Sands, emphatically. "I think she
ought to be ashamed of herself. The idea!"

"Well, it didn't seem to me real suitable," said Calvin; "I couldn't
_make_ it seem so, and so I said. 'What's got into her?' I said. 'You
and her belong together; and what's one's is 'tother's, ain't it, so far
as livin' goes?'

"The old lady looks at me kind o' queer. 'Phrony ain't satisfied,' she
says. 'She thinks the Lord designs her to be a