“Well, I read, ‘Moab is my wash pot, over Edom will I cast out my shoe.’ You’ve seen ’em cast shoes at the carriages of brides and grooms, haven’t you, Hepsey? Just for luck, you know. So it seemed to point towards matrimony again.”
“Say, Jonathan, you certainly have a wonderful gift for interpretin’ Scripture.”
“Well, Scripture or no Scripture, I want you, Hepsey.”
“Am I to understand that you’re just fadin’ and pinin’ away for love of me? You don’t look thin.” 166
“Oh, we ’aint neither of us as young as we once was, Hepsey. Of course I can’t be expected to pine real hard.”
“I’m afraid it’s not the real thing, Jonathan, unless you pine. Don’t it keep you awake nights, or take away your appetite, or make you want to play the banjo, or nothin’?”
“No, Hepsey; to tell you the plain truth, it don’t. But I feel awful lonesome, and I like you a whole lot, and I—I love you as much as anyone, I guess.”
“So you are in love are you, Jonathan. Then let me give you some good advice. When you’re in love, don’t believe all you think, or half you feel, or anything at all you are perfectly sure of. It’s dangerous business. But I am afraid that you’re askin’ me because it makes you think that you are young and giddy, like the rest of the village boys, to be proposin’ to a shy young thing like me.”
“No, Hepsey; you aren’t no shy young thing, and you haven’t been for nigh on forty years. I wouldn’t be proposin’ to you if you were.”
“Jonathan, your manners need mendin’ a whole lot. The idea of insinuatin’ that I am not a shy young thing. I’m ashamed of you, and I’m positive we could never get along together.”