"'I want 'o know,' he says. 'Well, we 'ain't got a baby and no churn—but mebbe it would run a cream-separator?'
"'Sure it would.'
"All the time we was a-joshin' this way he was a-studyin' me—and finally he said:
"'You can't fool me, Ed. How are ye?'
"And we shook hands. I always liked the old cuss. He was a great reader—always talkin' about Napoleon—he'd been a great man if he'd ever got off the farm and into something that required just his kind o' brain-work.
"'Come in,' he says. 'Nance will want to see you.'
"The minute he said that I had a queer feelin' at the pit o' my stummick—I did, sure thing. 'It's a little early for a call,' I says, 'and I ain't in Sunday clothes.'
"'That don't matter,' he says; 'she'll be glad to see you any time.'
"You'd 'a' thought I'd been gone eleven weeks instead of eleven years.
"Nance wasn't a bit like her dad. She always looked shipshape, no matter what she was a-doin'. She was in the kitchen, busy as a gasoline-motor, when we busted through the door.