"I come over on the trail Roger has wore in the grass," continued Miss Mattie, biting off her thread with a snap. "He's organised himself into sort of a travellin' library, I take it, what with transportin' books at all hours back and forth. After I go to bed, Roger lets himself out and sneaks over here, carryin' readin' matter both ways. But land's sake," she chuckled, "I ain't carin' what he does after I get sleepy. I was never one to stay up after nine o'clock for the sake of entertainment. If there's sickness, or anythin' like that, of course it's a different matter.
"Roger's pa was always a great one for readin', and we've both inherited it from him. Roger sits with his books and I sit with my paper, and we both read, never sayin' a word to each other, till almost nine o'clock. We're what you might call a literary family.
"Jewel of a Girl"
"I'm just readin' a perfectly beautiful story called Margaret Merriman, or the Maiden's Mad Marriage. Margaret must have been worth lookin' at, for she had golden hair and eyes like sapphires and ruby lips and pearly teeth. I was readin' the description of her to Roger, and he said she seemed to be what some people would call 'a jewel of a girl.'
"Margaret Merriman's mother died when she was an infant in arms, just like your ma, Barbara, and left her to her pa. Her pa didn't marry again, though several was settin' their caps for him on account of him bein' young and handsome and havin' a lot of money. I suppose bein' a widower had somethin' to do with it, too. It does beat all how women will run after a widower. I suppose they want a man who's already been trained, but, speakin' for myself, I've always felt as if I'd rather have somethin' fresh and do my own trainin'—women's notions differ so about husbands.
Training Husbands
"Just think what it would be to marry a man, thinkin' he was all trained, and to find out that it had been done wrong. You'd have to begin all over again, and it'd be harder than startin' in with absolute ignorance. The man would get restless, too. When he thought he was graduated and was about ready to begin on a post-graduate course, he'd find himself in the kindergarten, studyin' with beads and singin' about little raindrops.
"Gettin' an idea into a man's head is like furnishin' a room. If you can once get a piece of furniture where you want it, it can stay there until it's worn out or busted, except for occasional dustin' and repairin'. You can add from time to time as you have to, but if you attempt to refurnish a room that's all furnished, and do it all at once, you're bound to make more disturbance than housecleanin'.
"It has to be done slow and careful, unless you have a likin' for rows, and if you're one of those kind of women that's forever changin' their minds about furniture and their husband's ideas, you're bound to have a terrible restless marriage.
"Roger's pa was fresh when I took him, but, unbeknownst to me, he'd done his own furnishin', and the pieces was dreadful set and hard to move. Some of 'em I slid out gently and others took some manouverin', but steady work tells on anythin'. He was thinkin' as I wanted him to about most things, though, when he died, and that's sayin' a good deal, for he didn't die until after we'd been married seven years and three months and eighteen days. If he wasn't really thinkin' right, he was pretendin' to, and that's enough to satisfy any reasonable woman.