He still looks right contented. What could I say to him then?
"Too bad," says he, "you couldn't of stayed up to get the happy news, Curly!" says he. "I expect Tom Kimberly would of been right glad to tell you or me; but I knew how the thing was going. I been a young man once myself. He don't want old people setting round—he wants the whole field clear for hisself. It takes young folks several hours sometimes to set and tell things to each other that could be told in just a minute. Proposing is a industrial waste, the way it's done customary.
"Well, well!" he goes on. "I'm glad my little girl's going to be so happy. She's a good girl and she loves her pa. Sometimes I even think she's right fond of you, Curly," says he. "I can't see why. You're a mighty trifling man, Curly," says he. "I don't see why I keep you."
Then I knowed he was feeling good. He wouldn't turn me off noways in the world, but he liked to joke thataway sometimes.
"Well," says he after a while, "what do you say about it your own self, Curly?"
"I say she loves you as much as any girl ever did her pa. She loves me, too, though I don't know why, neither."
"Shore she does!" he nods. "And she'll do the square thing by us two—that's shore."
"Is it?" says I. "Well, who knows what's the square thing in the world? Sometimes it's hard to tell what is."
"That's so," says he, thoughtful. "Sometimes it is. I might of liked some other man better'n Tom, maybe, if there'd been any other man; but there isn't. I'm glad she's taken him. He'll turn out all right. He's a good boy and his folks is good. He'll come out all right—don't you worry."
"No," says I; "I reckon it'll do no good to worry, Colonel."