"Is that all the proposin' you've done in the last five mouths, Hull Parsons?" she demanded stormily. "You ain't asked every old maid for miles around to marry you, have you, Hull Parsons? An' you didn't tell the last one you proposed to that if she didn't take you there would be only one more chance left—that old pepper-box of a Widow Perkins? You didn't say that, now, did you, Hull Parsons?" and the widow's eyes and voice snapped fire all at once.
The caller turned several different shades of red and realized that he had struck the biggest snag he'd ever struck in any courting career, past or present. He laughed violently for a second or two, tried to hang his hat on both knees at the same time, and finally sank his voice to a confidential undertone:—
"Now, widdy, that's the woman's way o' puttin' it. They've been jealous o' you all 'long, fur they knew where my mind was sot. I wouldn't married one o' them women for nothing," added the widower, with another hitch toward the ironing board.
"Huh!" responded the widow, losing a trifle of her warlike cast of countenance. "S'pose all them women hadn't refused you, Hull Parsons, what then?"
"They didn't refuse me, widdy," returned the widower, trying to look sheepish, and dropping his voice an octave lower. "S'pose I hadn't oughter tell on 'em, but—er—can you keep a secret, widdy?"
"I ain't like the woman who can't," remarked the widow, shortly.
"Well, then, I was the one who did the refusin'—the hull gang went fer me right heavy, guess 'cause 'twas leap year, or they was tryin' on some o' them new women's ways, or somethin' like that. But my mind was sot all along, d'ye see, widdy?"
And the Widow Perkins invited Widower Parsons to stay to dinner, because she thought she saw.
+Theme LXXVII.+—Complete the story on pages 79-80, or one of the following:—