"You are just in time for a snack," old man Pitt cried, waving the leg of a chicken.
"And here is some pie that Miss Nancy baked with her own hands," said Warren, moving closer to the girl to make room for his friend. "I have been telling Mr. Pitt about your funny marriage."
"Yes," Pitt spoke up, "and I was tellin' of him that if I was in your place and wanted her, now that I had the law on my side, I'd have her or a fight or a foot race, one or tuther, it wouldn't make much difference which. Of course I mean if I found out after the joke was all over that I wanted her, for I tell you—have a piece of this light corn bread—I tell you that it is a mighty serious thing when a man wants a woman and wants her bad. Here's some pickles—they ain't good, but they'll do at a shake-down. But this here ham's prime. Serious thing, sir, when a man wants a woman and wants her right bad. There's a case in our neighborhood of a young feller goin' crazy after a woman he wanted. It ain't but once in a while, you know, that a feller finds the woman set up to suit him, and when he do find her, why he ought to sorter spit on his hands—figurative like," he made haste to add, catching the reproving eye of his daughter. "Spit on his hands figurative like and give it out cold that he is there to stay till the cows come home. And that reminds me that this here butter ain't of the best. The cow eat a lot of beet tops and it didn't help her butter none, I contend, still some folks wouldn't notice it. I hear 'em say, Mr. Whut's-your-name, that you come from away up yander whar rocks is so plenty on the farms that in a hoss trade it would be big boot if a feller was to throw in a hankerchuf full of dirt. I don't blame you for comin' away from thar."
"It's pretty rocky up there," said Lyman. "One of our humorists—Doesticks," he added, nodding to Warren, "said that we had to slice our potatoes and slip them down edgeways between the rocks."
The old man sprawled himself on the ground and laughed. "Well, if they was to go out a shootin' at liars wheat straw would leak through that feller's hide. How are you gittin' along over thar, Mr. Warren?" he inquired, sitting up and again devoting himself to the chicken.
"First rate, don't know when I've eaten as much."
"Oh, you haven't eat a thing," Miss Nancy protested, looking at him in great surprise. "You'd soon die at this rate."
"You are right, but not of starvation. I suppose they are feeding the preacher," he said, looking round. "Yes, they've got him up there. Look the women are bringing him things from all directions. Lyman, your people didn't wait to congratulate him. I think it hurt him, too, for I saw his countenance fall. You must have said something to hurry the old lady off."
"No, on the contrary I rather urged her to stay."
"Yes, and that's what sent her off."