"Why," says he, "Major Curtis Binger told me himself that in the five years he lived neighbors to her he hadn't seen her more'n once or twice. They say she hadn't been out of her yard for ten years up to the time she went abroad for her health and died of it."
"Anyone that could live in this town that long and not die, couldn't have tried very hard," says I. "Who's this Major Binger?"
"Oh, he's a retired army officer, the major is; widower, with two daughters," says he.
"Singletons?" says I.
"Yep, and likely to stay so," says he.
About then he turns in between a couple of fancy stone gate-posts, twists around a cracked bluestone drive, and lands me at the front steps of Nightingale Cottage. For the kind, it wa'n't so bad—one of those squatty bay-windowed affairs, with a roof like a toboggan chute, a porch that did almost a whole lap around outside, and a cobblestone chimney that had vines growin' clear to the top. And sure enough, there was Dennis Whaley with his rake, comin' as near a grin as he knew how.
Well, he has me in tow in about a minute, and I makes a personally conducted tour of me estate. Say, all I thought I was gettin' was a couple of buildin' lots; but I'll be staggered if there wa'n't a slice of ground most as big as Madison Square Park, with trees, and shrubbery, and posy beds, and dinky little paths loopin' the loop all around. Out back was a stable and goosb'ry bushes and a truck garden.
"How's thim for cabbages?" says Dennis.
"They look more like boutonnieres," says I. But he goes on to tell as how they'd just been set out and wouldn't be life-size till fall. Then he shows the rows that he says was goin' to be praties and beans and so on, and he's as proud of the whole shootin'-match as if he'd done a miracle.
When we got around to the front again, where Dennis has laid out a pansy harp, I sees a little gatherin' over in front of the cottage next door. There was three or four gents, and six or eight women-folks. They was lookin' my way, and talkin' all to once.