“Married!” ejaculated the colonel. “You and Guy talking of getting married? What are you going to live on, child?”
“On that hill back there.”
She jerked her thumb in a direction that was broadly south by west.
“That will give them two things to live on,” suggested the boy, grinning.
“What do you mean—two things?” demanded the girl.
“The hill and father,” her brother replied, dodging.
She pursued him, and he ran behind his mother’s chair; but at last she caught him, and, seizing his collar, pretended to chastise him, until he picked her up bodily from the floor and kissed her.
“Pity the poor goof she ensnares!” pleaded Custer, addressing his parents. “He will have three avenues of escape—being beaten to death, starved to death, or talked to death.”
Eva clapped a hand over his mouth.
“Now listen to me,” she cried. “Guy and I are going to build a teeny, weeny bungalow on that hill, all by ourselves, with a white tile splash board in the kitchen, and one of those broom closets that turn into an ironing board, and a very low, overhanging roof, almost flat, and a shower, and a great big living room where we can take the rugs up and dance, and a spiffy little garden in the back yard, and chickens, and Chinese rugs, and he is going to have a study all to himself where he writes his stories, an——”