“No; oh, no,” protested Dr. Miller with chagrin. “She’d a right to suit herself. I’ll be around some other day.”
“We’d take it hard if you didn’t,” said John.
“But just now,” concluded the doctor, “I feel what a body might call—stirred-off.”
Dick Hanks was riding up close to Jimmy Thompson, while Jimmy unblanketed his mare and prepared for a deliberate departure.
“John, now,” remarked Jimmy,—“he brothered the preacher right up, didn’t he? They’ll be makin’ a class-leader o’ John yet, if they can git him to quit racin’ horses.”
“Which way you goin’ home, Jimmy?” inquired Dick Hanks anxiously.
“The long way, round by Georger Chapel, where I can look at the tombstones for company. Want to go along? We can talk over the weddin’, and you’re only two mile from home at our woods’ gate.”
“I guess I’ll take the short cut through the brush,” said Dick.
Jimmy drove through the clearing and fence-gap, where John Davis was waiting to lay up the rails again.
“What’s that?” said John, and they both paused to listen.