your Encyclopedia
of Compendium does, because night after night Doc would sit up and
explain till I'd drop off asleep.

"But it wasn't no use. So far as I could see, r'inca'nation was jist
plain error and follerin' after false gods, and I told Doc so. Anyhow,
I knowed there wan't nothin' like it in the Methodist Church, an' I jist
up and let Doc know I wouldn't marry anybody that believed such stuff.
Doc reckoned to change my mind, but my argument was jist plain 'I
won't!' and that settled it. I believe a man and wife ought to belong to
the same church,--'thy God shall be my God'--and I wasn't goin' to give
up what I'd been taught for any crazy notions Doc had got into his head.
I told him so, plain.

"Then Doc took a poetry-writing spell, but he wasn't no great hand at
it. I told him in plain words he would be better off rollin' allopathy
pills. I used to git right put out with Doc sometimes, foolin' away good
time that way, sittin' round by the hour spoilin' good paper. I reckon
he started close onto a thousand poems, but he didn't git along very
good. 'Bout the their line he'd stop and tear up what he'd wrote. When
I wasn't mad I used to feel real sorry for Doc, he tried so hard;
but feelin' sorry for him didn't help him none, and it was kind of
ridiculous to see him.

"One day I asked Doc why he didn't tell ma and the rest of Kilo what
he believed in, and he said that Kilo folks couldn't understand sich
things, bein' mostly born and bred in the Methodist Church, and not
lib'ral like he was. I seen he was payin' me a compliment, because he
had told me, but I couldn't swaller r'inca'nation, for all that. And so
we didn't seem to git no further.

"But one day Doc says, 'Well, Loreny, WHY can't you marry me? They
ain't no one can love you like I do, and you know I'll make you a good
husband, and I'll go to church with you reg'lar if you say so.'

"'Goin' to church ain't all, Doc Weaver,' I says. 'I jist won't marry a
man that believes sich trash as you do.'

"'Well, tell me why not,' he says.

"'I'll tell you, Doc Weaver,' I says, 'since you drive me to it. I'm
willing enough to marry YOU, but I ain't willing to marry some old
heathen Chinee or goodness knows what!'

"'Doc was took all aback. 'Why, Loreny!' he says, 'Why, Loreny!'

"'I mean it,' I says, 'jist what I say. How can I tell who you are when
you say yourself you ain't nothing but some old spirit in a new body?
Like as not you're Herod, or an India