"Jud he hardly dasts to show up on Sunday, but when he does, she won't look at him fer quite a while. Then some o' that strawbary-blonde in her comes out in some o' the dernedest scoldin' yeh ever heer'd.
"'It's too bad, Jessie,' says he, 'but it ain't my fault. I done my best. He backed out at the las' minute; he backed out, an' I couldn't do no more than if a tree dropped on me. He backed out.'
"After a while he takes her off up the flume a piece, an' they stays there a long time, but she don't seem satisfied much when she comes back. There is hell a-poppin' there for about three days over that there pianner, an' the ol' man he gits so sick of it he gives her warnin' he'll light out if she don't quit. Wal, she quiets down some after that, but she makes Jud as mis'able as a treed coon fer over a week. She keeps a-tryin' an' a-tryin' to git him to send the pianner down anyway. She tells him she'll send it back afore the Sneaths gits home.
"'He told me I could have it; he promised me,' says she, 'he promised me, an' I'll never marry you unless you send it down. You can do it; you're goin' to be boss, an' you know it will be all right. I'll see that they ain't a scratch on it; an' you can put it in the warehouse, an' they'll never know it's be'n away.'
"An' so she keeps a-teasin' an' a-teasin', till finally Jud he gits desperate.
"'Oram,' says he to me one day, 'Oram, you're an ol' flume man. What do you think o' runnin' that pianner down to Five?'
"I shakes my head. I likes the boy, an' I don't want ter see him take sech big chances o' gittin' inter trouble. Somebody might tell Sneath, an' then it might be all off about his bein' flume boss. Besides, nobody had never run no pianner down no flume before, an' yeh couldn't tell what might happen.
"'D' yeh think, honest, Oram,' says he, 'the ol' flume's likely ter give way anywheres?'
"'No,' says I; 'she's strong as a railroad-track.'
"'Wal, then,' says he, 'I'm a-goin' to do it. You come down Sunday an' we'll take her out afore anybody's out o' the bunk-house.'