And then along in July Edmund got married to Miss Carey. They was sure a happy two!
“Are y’u still the oldest man in the valley?” I asks Edmund one day in the store.
“About three and a half,” says Edmund, solemn and deep. But then he laughs.
Oh, yes, their happiness filled that store, filled the whole cabin, crowded it. Maybe that’s why I left the valley.
VIII
THE DRAKE WHO HAD MEANS OF HIS OWN
Scipio sat beside the table—Mrs. Culloden’s still very new, wedding-present table—arguing on and on, and I forgot all about him. When he slapped the Wyoming game laws for that year down on the table hard, and complained that I was not listening to him, I continued to look out of the ranch window at the pond and merely said:—
“Just hear those ducks.”
He stared at me with disgust and scorn. “Ducks!” he then muttered.
“Well, but hear them,” I urged.
“Well, they’re quackin’,” he said. “A duck does.” He picked up the game laws and resumed: “As I was telling you, it says—page 12, section 25—”