“I don’t know ’bout that,” the Loafer interrupted. “Did you uns ever see my Missus ’hen she was sixteen an’——”
“She was sixteen then,” repeated the Teacher, ignoring the remark; “she was sixteen and extremely good lookin’. But most of you have seen her since and it’s no use for me to dwell on that point. As the years went by I got to set a heap of store by Kate and she set a heap of store by me. But we kept it to ourselves till we was twenty. Then we agreed to be married. Our agreement didn’t do any good, for Abraham set his foot down on the scheme. He wasn’t goin’ to have no hirelin’ of his a-merryin’ his dotter. I explained to him how his days was drawin’ to an end; how a time was a-comin’ when the place wouldn’t do him any more good and no more harm ’ud come to him whether his farm-hand was runnin’ it or not; how his dotter would need lookin’ after and all that. His answer was to drive me away with a horse-whip.
“That was in November. For seven weeks I never laid eyes on the girl, for the old man watched her like a hawk. But he tired of that, and one night let her go to literary society meetin’ at Kishikoquillas school. I saw her there and wanted her to elope right on the spot. She said no. It was too sudden. Besides, she wanted her things, for she knew her father would keep them just for spite if she run away without them. So we fixed it up that next night—that was Christmas Eve—she was to meet me at their barn, and we would take one of the horses and a sleigh and skip.
“Now, as I said, Abraham was a superstitious man and continual readin’ the almanac and perusin’ charms. He believed in that old sayin’ about the cattle talkin’ on Christmas Eve. Many a night he’d argued the point with me. I always said if he thot it was true, why didn’t he go listen to it. He declared he would, but he never did—leastways he put it off to a most onexpected time. If there was any place the cattle was likely to talk, I used to tell him, it was right in that big, spooky barn of his; and if there was any place where one could hear them perfect, it was right there. The stables was in the basement and the mows was overhead. The hay was stored above the horses and mules. A hole about ten feet across and twenty feet deep run from the top of the mow into that particular stable. I explained to him how he could lay at the top of the hay, put his head down into the hole and hear everything that passed. But that Christmas Eve I’d forgot all about our argument. I’d other things to think of.
“I reached the barn at midnight. Kate was there, standin’ by the gate waitin’. Everything was clear. The old man, she said, had gone to bed and didn’t have any suspicions. So we got the sleigh ready and went into the horse stable to harness up. It was clear moonlight outside but inside it was dark as pitch and fearful ghostly. There were all kinds of noises—hay rattlin’, rats skippin’ around, chains clinkin’; and every now and then a hen roostin’ up in the racks would begin to cluck and scare Kate awful. Grave-yards is bad at night but they ain’t a circumstance to a big barn.
“I picked out the white John mule, for I knew he was a good traveler, and gettin’ the harness, I went into his stall and began to fix it on him. Then I couldn’t find any bridles. I whispered to Kate. She said they was over in the cow stable, and went to get one. It seemed to me she was gone an awful long time. I could hear her trampin’ around, but as she didn’t appear to be havin’ much success I called, not very loud, ‘What’s wrong?’
“‘Nothin’,’ she answered, ‘I’ll have them in a minute.’
“It seemed like I heard a suspicious noise come down the hayhole from the mow above. I listened, but I didn’t hear any more sounds, so guessed it was a rat.
“Then I called louder to Kate, for I was mad at Abraham for all the trouble he’d given us, ‘The old man is a mean customer if there ever was one!’