"Alfinso, you dropped something. I heard you distinctly." Rufus was cool and collected as he put Jenny back in her chair. "Now I've some news for you. Jenny and I are going to be married on Christmas Eve and your family is invited. Will you take care of the house while I go to Boston and get all my papers and passports and identifications and finger-prints and certificates and army records and honorable discharges and pedigrees, and draw my back pay—because I am a stranger in Riverboro and I want to get into society. Why don't you speak? Aren't you surprised?"
"I would 'a' been," said the boy, '"cept that Alfonso and the postmistress both said it would turn out that way; but Mother stood up for Jenny; she said it wouldn't."
"That's what all the women will have said," laughed Rufus.
"Well, all the men will say I jumped at you, so accounts will be square!" and Jenny smiled triumphantly back at Rufus, all blushes and confusion, her heart beating like a wild bird in her breast. "Go, Rufus, please," she said in a low tone, "and take Alfinso. I want to be alone with myself and get used to—happiness."
He bent over her and kissed her cheek while Alfinso went for his muffler and mittens.
"Good-by! I'll bring back the ring; don't forget the party. We won't stint refreshments. I'll give the twins a dollar to bring you little trees and evergreens for garlands and we'll make a brave showing of the house. Isn't it lucky there'll be a full moon on the shingles? No doubt about the minister now! He'll have to come in the performance of his duty. Oh! my dear, my dear, God is being very good to me!"
"Good to us," whispered Creeping Jenny, putting her lips softly and shyly against his sleeve.
THE AUTHOR'S READING AT BIXBY CENTRE
[Those readers who are familiar with "Timothy's Quest" will remember, perhaps, that Aunt Hitty Tarbox is a village seamstress and dressmaker who goes out by the day in Pleasant River and Edgewood, her specialty being the making-over of boys' clothes. Perhaps they will recall, too, that she uses her needle, her scissors, and her tongue with equal rapidity, and that each one of them is about as sharp as the other, although she is a member of the Orthodox church in good and regular standing. After thirty years' life in Pleasant River, that quiet village has proved too small for her genius, and she has removed to the more thriving town of Bixby Centre, an imaginary place located anywhere in the State of Maine. Mrs. Strout, an old friend from Milliken's Mills, has come to visit Bixby for a day or two; and it is during a call upon Aunt Hitty that she gains a general idea of the Author's Reading which has just occurred. Imagine Aunt Hitty, then, in a comfortable sewing-chair, her lapboard on her knee, workbasket within reach, tongue in excellent running order, and one eye always on the road which goes past her window—for she is one of the few persons who can make over boys' clothes, conduct a fire of conversation, and miss nothing that goes on in the outside world, all at once.]