“Be you sure the artist-chap’s comin’, Gabe?” asked Amanda, all at once losing interest in the main topic.
“W’y, yes. W’y not? Anything wrong, Mandy?”
“I dunno; she’s been treatin’ him awful cool the last few days.”
Gabriel laughed. “I was awful gone on a red-headed girl once myself,—long ’fore I met you, Mandy,—an’ I tell you they keep you guessin’. You never know how to take ’em. It’s always a toss-up what to say or do when you court a red-headed girl. One day you can grab her and kiss her behind the door, an’ she’ll act as if she wanted to thank you for it, an’ the very next day she’ll go into tantrums if you even wink at her. I tell ye, Mandy, my red-headed girl kept me guessin’ which way she’d jump till I got so thin I couldn’t cast a shadder.”
“Served you right,” snapped Amanda. “Men are so stupid. I s’pose when you got so thin she could see right through you, she was thankful to settle down as an old maid.”
“No,” said Gabriel solemnly, “she married and proved a great blessin’ to her husband.”
“You don’t say! How could that be?”
“W’y, ye see,” drawled Gabriel, “he was th’ livin’ skeleton in a circus, an’ a month after th’ weddin’ he’d lost so much flesh that they doubled his salary.”
Then they both jumped guiltily at the sound of another voice:—
“May I come into your kitchen, Amanda?”