thin' serious is to be done with a man, it's got to be
done from behind a woodpile. I had some little dealin's with men in the
marryin' line once, 'n' I found 'em very shy; tamin' gophers is sleepin'
in the sun beside grabbin' a man 's dead against bein' grabbed. I don't
say 's it can't be done, but I will say 't it 's hard in the first 'n'
harder in the last, when you 've got him 'n' he's got you, like the
minister 's got his wife."

"But Mrs. Macy ain't--" protested Mrs. Lathrop.

"No; 'n' it's her own fault, too. He told me this afternoon 's the way
she smiled on him right in the first days made the marrow run up 'n'
down his back. He said he c'd 'a' stood lots o' things, but no human
bein' but gets mad bein' forever smiled at. Then she knit him things. He
says she knit him a pair o' snap-on slippers 's Heaven 'll surely
forgive him if he ever see the like of. He said they stuck out 's far
behind 's in front, 'n' all in the world 't he c'd do was to sit
perfectly still in the middle of 'em 'n' content himself with viewin'
'em 's slippers. But he says the worst was, she cooked him things; he
says he won't say what he 's paid young Dr. Brown for advice regardin'
things 's she 's cooked him, not to speak o' that time he cut himself so
bad pryin' at one o' her undercrusts. 'N,' just between you 'n' me, Mrs.
Lathrop, he says it 's a secret 's he will carry to his grave unsealed
as she give him a crock o' gherkins on his birthday, with a pair o'
buttonhole scissors at the bottom.

"He said he jus' felt he 'd enjoy to have the revenge o' stayin' single.
But he said it did n't take him long to see 's stayin' single is a
privilege 's no woman 's goin' to allow to a man whose wife 's dead. He
says the way he 's been chased 's all but killin'. He says there 's Mrs.
Allen firin' Polly at him when he goes over there for his dinner, 'n'
the minister tellin' him every Sunday 'n' prayer-meetin' how 'Liza Em'ly
is shootin' up. He says Gran'ma Mullins is forever referrin' to his
youth, 'n' Mrs. Macy is forever smilin'. He says he could easy keep his
house alone,--he says he understands a house from moth-balls to
quicklime,--but they won't let him. He says he 's not only town
property, but he 's town talk 's well. He says Mrs. Craig stopped him in
the square 'n' asked him point-blank if he'd remembered to put on his
flannels day before yesterday.

"I tell you, Mrs. Lathrop, it's plain 't that man has suffered. If you
'd 'a' seen hi