“Richard Alger treated her mean.”
“Guess he sat out considerable firewood an' candle-grease,” assented the old man.
A customer came in then, and Ezra Ray sprang forward. He was all excited over his brother's wedding, and was tending store in his place that day. His mother was making him a new suit to wear to the wedding, and he felt as if the whole affair hung, as it were, upon the buttons of his new jacket and the straps of his new trousers.
“Guess I might as well go over to Aunt Sylvy's now as any time,” said William.
“Don't see what she wanted you to fetch the horse an' sled for,” ruminated Silas. “Mother thought most likely she'd give some silver teaspoons if she give anything.”
William went out to the barn, put the horse in the sled, and drove down the hill towards Sylvia's. When he returned the old thin silver teaspoons of the Crane family were in his coat-pocket, and Sylvia's dearly beloved and fondly cherished hair-cloth sofa was on the sled behind him.
“What in creation did she send them old teaspoons and that old sofa for?” his mother asked, disgustedly.
“I don't know,” replied William, soberly; “but I do know one thing: I hated to take them bad enough. She acted all upset over it. I think she'd better have kept her sofa and teaspoons as long as she lived.”
“Course she was upset givin' away anything,” scolded his mother. “It was jest like her, givin' away a passel of old truck ruther than spend any money. Well, I s'pose you may as well set that sofa in the parlor. It ain't hurt much, anyway.”
Rose and her husband were to live with her parents for the present. She was married that evening. She wore a blue silk dress, and some rose-geranium blossoms and leaves in her hair. Tommy Ray sat by her side on Sylvia's sofa until the company and the minister were all there. Then they stood up and were married.