"There's a big circus picture on Mr. Wade's barn, just stuck up this morning. It has a great big tiger crawling up an elephant, and soldiers fighting Indians, all big, in splendid colors! Come over and see it."
Ruth frowned. In her very pretty eyes, as she turned them in sadness on the prospective groom, was pity—the almost tearful yet contemptuous pity with which Wisdom looks on Folly.
"Cyrus, you are just a boy. You don't understand things."
"Don't understand what things?"
"How important this marriage is."
"Oh, that's all right. I'm ready. Let's go ahead now and have it over with. What do we do first?"
"We must go in to father and ask him to marry us, just as he did those people this morning."
"All right. Come along."
As the two children entered the house, Zac with a bark of joy bounced into the hall ahead of them. It was a loud bark, a piercing, youthful bark, that might disturb a dozen clergymen if working on their sermons.
Ruth stopped. "Hush, you horrid dog!"