“She wasn’t crossed in love nor nothing, was she?” asked the persevering querist; “that sometime plays witchwork with a woman.”
“Oh, that reminds me,” said the parson. “I hear Zekiel Jones is engaged to your Louisa.”
“My Louizy!” screamed Mrs. Jones, walking straight into the trap; “My Louizy engaged to Zekiel Jones! a fellow who don’t know a hoe-handle from a hay-cutter. I guess there’ll be a tornady in this house afore that marriage comes off. I do wish people would mind their own business, and not meddle with what don’t consarn ’em. Now who told you that, parson?”
“Well, I really don’t remember,” replied the minister; “but you know it matters little, so there’s no truth in it,” and dexterously escaping through the dust he had raised, he bowed himself down the garden walk; while Mrs. Jones stood with her arms a-kimbo, in the doorway, ejaculating: “Zekiel Jones and my Louizy—a fellow who goes to sleep in the middle of the day in haying time, and a gal who can churn forty pounds of butter a day! Gunpowder and milk! I guess so.”
CHAPTER X.
“How shall we manage to kill time to-day, Jack?” asked Tom Shaw; “race-course—billiards—club—pistol gallery?”
“Kill time! You—a bridegroom of six months! Well, you can’t say you weren’t warned. You remember I told you you would soon weary of your new toy. A six-months’ bridegroom!” and Tom laughed merrily.
“Long enough to make love to a statue, were it ever so faultless,” replied Tom, with a yawn. “I’m bored to death, Jack, and I don’t care who knows it. My mother-in-law, who, to do her justice, is clever enough, strolls over the house like a walking tomb-stone. My wife is as lifeless as if half the women in town were not dying for me. It’s cursed monotonous; hang me if I’m not sick of it.”
“Does your wife never speak to you?” asked Jack.