"He's awfully nice to me, Roland is," says Zylphina, with a giggle. "And ain't this a swell car, though? Roland takes me to my boardin' house in it 'most every night. But how are the corn and hogs doin', Wilbur?"
Say, there was a topic Wilbur was up on. He throws her a grateful grin and proceeds to unlimber his conversation works. He tells Zylphina how many acres he put into corn last spring, how much it shucked to the acre, and how many head of hogs he has just sent to the ham and lard lab'ratory. That brand of talk sounds kind of foolish there under the arc lights; but Zylphina pricks up her ears.
"Ten carloads of hogs!" says she. "Is that a kid, or are you just havin' a dream?"
"I cal'late it'll be twenty next fall," says he, fishin' for somethin' in his pocket. "Here's the packing house receipts for the ten, anyway."
"Let's see," says she, and by the way she skins her eye over them documents you could tell that Zylphina'd seen the like before. Also she was somethin' of a ready reckoner.
"Oh, Wilbur!" says she, makin' a flyin' leap and landin' with her arms around his neck. "I'm yours, Wilbur, I'm yours!"
And Wilbur, he gathers her in.
"Roland," says I, steppin' up to the shuffer, "you can crank up. Hoxie's won out in the tenth."