She gazed at him in wonderment.
“Square with me?” she exclaimed, and laughed. “Well, you better believe he has been.”
Paisley caught the girl’s hands and held them tight.
“And didn’t you care for him a lot?” he asked huskily.
“No,” she answered, her face averted, “I didn’t care for him at all. He wasn’t my style, Bill.”
“Mary Ann,” said the Bushwhacker, “so long’s I thought you liked Simpson better’n me I kept away. Now, if I could learn somehow that you cared more for me than you do for anybody else, ‘give my life,’ as Mrs. Declute says, if I wouldn’t ask you right out to be Mrs. Paisley. I’ve got a nice home all to myself and three old socks crammed with greenbacks made out of pelts, hid away again’ a weddin’-day with you. You see, Mary Ann,” he said wistfully, “I somehow knowed, or thought I knowed, you didn’t mean right down business with the teacher. Now, girl, am I to be your old man or am I not?”
“You are, Bill,” she whispered, hiding her face on his shoulder.
Widow Ross, coming out hurriedly from the house with a steaming pot of potatoes in her hand, saw something that almost made her drop her burden. There stood long Bill Paisley with his arms about her Mary Ann’s waist.
“Bill Paisley,” gasped the widow, advancing, “you get right away from Mary Ann. Ain’t you ashamed of yourself! You’re old enough to know better. Now, you get right away from my girl or I’ll scald you with this hot potater water.”
“She ain’t your girl no more, widder,” grinned Paisley. “She’s mine now.”