"Sammy Adams was in to spend the afternoon," Mrs. Ray went on. "We talked the question of my marrying him all over again. He always asks me when he comes for the whole afternoon like that, and he had such a hard time getting it all out to-day with people running in to talk about the Lathbuns every second, that I just had to appreciate the way he stuck to it clear through to the end."
"What did you say?" asked Mrs. O'Neil.
"I didn't say much. I was too busy talking to the others, you know. Yes, indeed. But I was sorry for him. He's so scared sleeping alone in his house for fear of maybe being swindled in his bed before he knows it. And now he's worried for fear the dam is going to drown him unexpectedly, too. They say if that dam is built and does bu'st, the Johnstown Flood won't be in it with Rochester. The folks that want the Falls saved 'll get their chance to say, 'I told you so' then; but that won't help Sammy much."
"What did you say?" Mrs. O'Neil asked again.
"Well, when I got a chance, I told him I'd despise a man who'd let me keep on working as hard as I work now, but that if any man was to ask me to give up the church, or the post-office, or my chickens, that would show he didn't know me, right in the start."
"What did he say to that?" Mrs. O'Neil asked with interest.
"He didn't know what to say at first, but then he's the kind of man that never does know what to say. I declare, Nellie, I do think men that want to marry women act too foolish for words. Yes, indeed. If a man wants to do anything else in the world he gets to work and does it; but if he wants to marry a woman he just sits still and looks silly and leaves it to the woman to be done or not."
"Do you think so?" said Mrs. O'Neil.
"Think so," said Mrs. Ray; "I know so. I've had men acting foolish around where I was all my life. I've tripped over 'em while sweeping, cooking, washing, tending Mr. Ray's family by his second wife, sorting mail,—why, I've had men thinking what a good wife I'd make all my life, and looking so like idiots while they thought it that I wouldn't look at it like they did for any money. They stop by the fence when I'm ploughing, and just grin with thinking what a hired man I'd make. I was cleaning the long aisle carpet at the church last Wednesday, and that minister that's visiting our minister couldn't keep away from the window. When I take my eggs and chickens to market, the buyer down there looks at how I've got those eggs packed and pinches my chickens, and then he turns to me and goodness, but his glance is loving."
"Well, you're a very smart woman, you know," said Mrs. O'Neil.