“Yes, spoiled eggs,” she declared. “You and Billings ought to be more careful.”
Pap turned his bacon over and eyed it critically. Then he frowned at it. Then he chuckled.
“You needn't laugh,” said Miss Sally severely. “You don't get no more eggs until the hens begin laying regular. You can eat moistened toast. You ain't fair to me, pa. You set up to say who I shall marry, when I'm old enough to know for myself, and then you go and cheat me about eggs. Mebby I ain't old enough to know who to marry, but I'm old enough to run this house for you, and you don't get no more eggs. No more eggs until spring, or until I can marry who I want to.”
Pap looked at the mushy piece of toast and grinned sheepishly.
“You'd be worse of 'n ever, Sally,” he said meekly, “if so be you married a man that felt he had to hev eggs every morning. They'd be two of us then.”
“Well, I'd just have to buy eggs then,” she said, “if that come to pass. I couldn't expect these few hens to lay enough eggs in winter for two men. If I had to buy eggs for a husband, I'd buy them.”
The old man ate his toast slowly and without relish.
“Sally,” he said that afternoon, “I guess mebby you'd better git married. I'm gittin' old. You'd better marry that book agent whilst you got a chance.”
It was Pap Briggs who urged an early date, after that, and who was most joyous at the wedding.
“Pap,” asked Sally one morning soon after she and Eliph' were married, while the three were sitting at breakfast, “what ever made you swing round so sudden and want me to marry Eliph', after objectin' so long?”