“You might have known it would, Hiram Salter!” said Betsy accusingly.
“O’ course I did. What d’ye s’pose I named her for?”
“’Twas a mean trick, Hiram!”
Captain Salter changed the blade of grass he was chewing to the other side of his mouth. “Why, certainly,” he responded. “Ye didn’t s’pose I wouldn’t descend to mean tricks, did ye? We heard even when we was goin’ to school that all’s fair in love and war.”
She looked at him for a moment with a baffled gaze, then she spoke.
“I don’t believe a word of it,” she said defiantly. “Everybody that knows me knows I ain’t ever goin’ to marry anybody. I wouldn’t anyway now—after you namin’ the boat. Do you s’pose I’d marry a man that shows right out plain that he’s a tyrant?”
Captain Salter emitted a low rumbling laugh, and sat quiet in his all-embracing chair.
“Tell me what’s doin’ in town,” asked Betsy in a different tone. “How’s Mrs. Pogram gettin’ along without Rosalie?”
“Oh, she’s havin’ a fierce time. She no sooner gets settled with somebody to help her, than Loomis upsets everything with some of his fool doin’s.”