“Him an’ me went up to Horner’s together. We found her churnin’, an’ set down in the grass an’ watched. Ez I watched I got to thinkin’ over what the ole man hed sayd. I seen that perhaps he was right; that I’d git her quicker ef I worked harder. The pictur of gittin’ her quicker almost made me git up an’ do the churnin’. But I thot agin. Ef I churned now I’d hev to churn allus or else I’d be cheatin’ her. Ef she knowd she was takin’ a man who was agin the wery suggestion’ she’d never hev no cause to complain. So I jest lay there chewin’ a straw an’ lookin’.
“That’s the way I done me courtin’ day after day all that summer. It was slow. Mighty, but it was slow! Sometim’s I got discouraged an’ thot the eend was never comin’ an’ I’d better give up. Then she’d drop a word or a look or somethin’ that kind o’ kep’ me hangin’ on. It seemed like she was gittin’ used to me. We seldom sayd anything, fer she was a thinkin’ woman. Fer me, I remembered how Pap allus allowed it was less dangerous fer a man to put a boy in charge o’ his saw-mill than to let his heart run his tongue. So I set an’ sayd nawthin’, but looked a heap.
“It was October ’hen I concided I’d make a trial, fer even ef nawthin’ come of it no petickler harm ’ud be done. So I ast her. She jest th’owed back her head, folded her arms an’ looked at me.
“‘Well?’ I sais.
“She looked a leetle harder an’ a leetle sterner. Her eyes kind o’ snapped.
“‘Well?’ I sais agin.
“‘I hevn’t no petickler dislike,’ sais she, ‘but ye ain’t my idee of a man. A man should move sometim’s.’
“‘Pet,’ I sais, ‘I know I ain’t much on leetle things, but wait tell they’s big things to do. Then I’ll startle ye!’
“I turned an’ walked out o’ the gate an’ ’long the road toward home.
“She didn’t hev to wait long. That wery night ez I set on the porch, I seen a big snake o’ fire come pokin’ his head over the mo’ntain top to the north’ard of us. Fer a time he laid ’round in the huckleberry shelf there, rollin’ an’ floppin’ about the bushes, like he was takin’ in the walley an’ wonderin’ what was the easiest way down the side to the chestnut flats where they was big piles o’ leaves, laurel bushes dry ez chips, an’ hundreds o’ dead trees, all waitin’ to be devoured. Mighty fine the ole snake looked, an’ a heap o’ pleasure it give me watchin’ him.