“He built a new kitchen, at the side instead of at the back where most people built their kitchens, so his wife could see the road when she was working, he said. And he added a front porch with railings and a seat at each end and painted the house white and set out rose bushes and honeysuckle vines and began to buy the furniture.
“Of course it caused a great deal of talk, and every one wondered whom Stanley was going to marry. The girls would laugh about Stanley’s house and say they wouldn’t marry a man who wouldn’t let them furnish their own house. And often they would tease Polly Ann, but she would only toss her head and say nothing.
“And all the time Stanley worked away, singing and whistling as happy as could be. When any one questioned him, he would say he meant to keep bachelor’s hall, or that he hadn’t decided what he would do, or that he planned to marry the sweetest girl he knew. Belle and Aggie were wild to know what girl he meant. They tried in every way to find out, but they couldn’t.
“Stanley often talked in his sleep, and they would listen to hear whether he mentioned a girl’s name, but they could never understand what he said. Some one told the girls to tie a string around Stanley’s great toe and when he talked to pull the string gently and he would repeat clearly what he had just said.
“One night Belle and Aggie did this, but instead of a string they used a piece of red yarn. When they were pulling it, it snapped in two, and Stanley woke up and found the yarn on his toe and jumped out of bed and chased the girls squealing and giggling into their room, and Father came out to see what was the matter.
“But finally the house was done, even to the last shining pan, and Mother had given Stanley so many quilts and blankets and things that Charlie grumbled and said there would be nothing left for the rest of us.
“One afternoon I was up at the cottage with Stanley planting some of Mother’s wonderful yellow chrysanthemums by the garden fence. Stanley was building a lattice at the end of the porch for a climbing rose which he had only just set out, when the front gate clicked and there, coming up the path, was Polly Ann Nesbit. Her cheeks were rosy and she was laughing.
“‘I’ve brought it myself, Stanley,’ she cried gaily. ‘You said in your letter to send you the button when I was ready to marry you, but I’ve brought it instead. Do you—do you still want it?’ and she held out this little button, the very one Stanley had pulled off his lavender waistcoat to please her.
“I looked at Stanley, so straight and tall and handsome though he was in his everyday clothes, to see what he would do.