“He's pow'ful sweet on Tilly,” said Aunt Sallie.
“Has he asked her to marry him?” asked the Bishop astonished.
“S-h-h—not yet,” said Uncle Davy, “but he's comin' to it as fast as a lean hound to a meat block. He's got the firs' tech now—silly an' poetic. After a while he'll get silly an' desperate, an' jes' 'fo' he kills hisse'l Tilly'll fix him all right an' tie him up for life. The good Lord makes every man crazy when he is ripe for matrimony, so he can mate him off befo' he comes to.”
The Bishop shook his head: “I am glad I came out here to-day—if for nothin' else to warn you to let that Biggers boy alone. He don't study nothin' but fast horses an' devilment.”
“I never seed a man have a wuss'r case,” said Aunt Sally. “Won't Tilly be proud of herse'f as the daughter of Old Judge Biggers? An' me—jes' think of me as the grandmother of Biggerses—the riches' an' fines' family in the land.”
“An' me?—I'll be the gran'pap of 'em—won't I, Sally?”
“You forgit, Davy,” said Aunt Sally—“this is yo' will—you'll be dead.”
“I did forgit,” said Uncle Davy sadly—“but I'd sho' love to live an' take one of them little Biggerses on my knees an' think his gran'pap had bred up to this. Me an' old Judge Biggers—gran'paws of the same kids! Now, you see, Hillard, he met Tilly at a party an' he tuck her in to supper. The next day he writ her a poem, an' I think it's a pretty good start on the gran'pap business.”
The Bishop smiled: “It does look like he loves her,” he added, dryly. “If I was the devil an' wanted to ketch a woman I'd write a poem to her every day an' lie between heats. Love lives on lies.”
“Now, I've ca'culated them things out,” said Uncle Davy, “an' it'll be this away: Tilly is as pretty as a peach an' Charlie is gittin' stuck wus'n wus'n every day. By the time I am dead they will be married good an' hard. I am almost gone as it is, the ole man he's liable to drap off any time—yea, Lord, thy servant is ready to go—but I do hope that the good master will let me live long enough to hold one of my Biggers grandboys on my knees.”