"And Miss Lucy," she added, "she told him to git the clothes bresh out'n the press drawer, and bresh off the dust whar he had got hit on him at the barn, and then he might have one her roses to put in his button-hole."
Mr. Lindsay's cheeks became a gray-white. "I wouldn't thenk a man'd have much chance to be a primpin' up and visitin' on a rush time—a terbaccer settin' season," he remarked icily.
"Yes, sir, Mr. Lindsay, yes, sir,—croppin' and courtin' don't go together right handy, do they?" Mr. Doggett agreed with Mr. Lindsay.
At this moment, Dock, who had been so consumed with curiosity to know the fate of the cow, that he had forced his weary feet to walk to the James house, returned, bringing new information.
"Mr. Brock, he went home long in the evenin' to git Reub's rifle," he informed his questioners; "and when he come back 'bout an hour ago, he shot the cow. He's thar now and says fer as many of us as hain't too tired, to come up and help cut wood to burn the carkis. Says hit'll spread the mad all over the country ef dogs git any of hit!"
"I plumb hate to not go," remarked Mr. Doggett, rubbing one of his stiffened lower limbs: "Joey, can't you and Roscoe, and some you young fellers go and holp Mr. Brock out!"
"Hit looks more like imperdence than anytheng else, fer him to ask fellers as wore out as you all, to do any more work tonight! The theng fer you all to do is to go to bed, and let him peel off them Sundays, and be his own 'hewer o' wood,'" said Gran'dad, unfeelingly. Mr. Lindsay smiled in the dim light of the small lamp, and gave Gran'dad's lean arm a pinch of commendation.
"That's right, Gran'dad," he said: "ef Miss Lucy's beau wants to raise hisse'f in the estimation o' her family, by conductin' a cow-burnin' fer 'em, less don't bother him none; less jest let him have his cow-burnin', and all the pleasure and honor there is in hit to hisse'f!" And every tobacco-setter agreed.
On his way to the tobacco field next morning, Dock made it convenient to go by the way of the Jameses and the funeral pyre, and from him, Miss Lucy learned that Mr. Lindsay had passed the night at the Doggetts. Because of this information, she drove even more slowly than usual on her way to town.
"Perhaps," she thought hopefully, "he'll remember hit's my marketin' day, and maybe he'll walk to town and overtake me, and ride 'long to town with me. Hit surely wouldn't be no harm."