is eyes up at the ceiling, and says, 'I might write,
Loreny.' 'Yes,' I says, 'so you might. And what 'd you write, Doc
Weaver?' I says. 'Shakespeare?' And Doc shet right up, and never
said another word. It was a mean thing for me to say, but I was awful
worried."

"Shakespeare?" inquired Eliph'.

"Yes, that's the word--Shakespeare," said Mrs. Weaver. "It come purty
nigh keeping me from marrying Doc. You see, Doc ain't like common folks.
Don's got sich broad ideas of things. Lib'ral, he calls it, but I name
it jist common foolish. He's got to give every new-fangled scheme a
show. I guess, off and on, Doc's believed most every queer name in the
dictionary, and some that ain't been put in yet. I used to tell him they
didn't git them up fast enough to keep up with him. He's got a wonderful
mind, Doc has.

"I hain't no notion how ever Doc got started believin' things, but mebby
he got in with a bad lot at the doctor school he went to. Doc told me
hisself they cut up dead folks. Anyhow, he come back from Chicago
a regular atheist; but that was before I knowed him. He lived up at
Clarence, and he didn't come to Kilo 'til about ten years after that,
and he'd got pretty well along by then, and had got right handy at
believin' things.

"Well, when Doc come to Kilo pa had jist died an' ma an' me had to take
in boarders to git along; so Doc come to our house to board. That's how
Doc an' me got to know each other. I was about as old as Doc, and we
wasn't either of us very chickenish, but I thought Doc was the finest
man I'd ever saw, an' exceptin' what I'm tellin' you, I ain't ever had
cause to change my mind.

"I'd never sa so many books as Doc brought--more'n we've got now. I
burned a lot when we got married--Tom Paine and Bob Ingersoll, and all I
wasn't sure was orthodoxy. Why, we had more books than we've got in
the Kilo Sunday School Lib'ry. 'Specially Shakespeare books, some
Shakespeare writ hisself, an' some that was writ about him. Doc was real
took up with Shakespeare them days.

"'Most all his spare time Doc put in readin' them Shakespeare books, and
sometime he'd git a new one. One day he come home mad. I ain't seen Doc
real mad but twice, but he was mad that day and no mistake. He'd got a
new book, an' he set down to read it as soon as he got in the house; but
every couple of pages he'd slap it shut and walk up an' down, growlin'
to hisself. Oh, but he was riled! That night I heard him stampin' up
an' down his ro