"I ain't takin' up no collection for the boys!" said Calvin coolly. "Where's Sam? I see the young colt is out."
"He's gone to market; and Cousin Sims' in a dreadful takin', for fear he'll get run away with, or hove out, or something."
Calvin stared. "Why, the colt is ten year old if he is a day!" he said.
"I told him that; but he said it didn't make no odds, he'd never found out he was grown up, and acted accordin'. He werries terrible about Cousin Sam every time he goes out, and Cousin Sam werries about him. I notice it growin' on the two of 'em. Mr. Parks, I believe that down in their hearts them two are missin' each other more than tongue can tell, and neither one of them knows what's the matter with him."
"You don't say!" said Calvin. "Why don't they make up, then? Ridic'lous old lobsters!"
"They don't know how!" said Mary. "Even if they mistrust what ails 'em, and I don't believe they do as yet."
She was silent a moment, and then added: "Mr. Parks, I feel I can speak out to you, that have been their friend right along. I wish't one of Cousins would marry; there! I do so!"
Calvin Parks's face, which had been radiant with cheerfulness, turned to brown wood. He looked straight before him, with no more expression than the green tomato he held in his hand.
"That so!" he said slowly. "Which—which one of 'em would you consider best suited to matrimony, Miss Hands, if 'tisn't too much to ask?"
"I don't know as I care which it is," cried Mary, earnestly,—Calvin winced, and dropped the tomato, which rolled slowly down the cellar door and plumped into the snow,—"so long as it's one of 'em. They ought to have a woman belongin' to them, Mr. Parks, as would take an interest in things because they was hers, you understand, and care for whichever one she'd marry and the other one too. They'd never ought to have been let act so foolish. You see, they'd always had a woman to do for 'em, and think for 'em, and live for 'em; and the minute she was gone they fell to pieces, kind of; 'tis often so with men folks," she said simply. "They ain't calc'lated to be alone. But even now, if there was a woman belongin' to 'em, that had the right to say how things should be, I believe she could bring 'em together in no time."