"What did she want?" he inquired, curiously.
When Joe told him he plunged into his pocket and drew out two dollars, then offered to go among the young fellows and collect the balance of the amount, but Joe caught hold of him.
"Think of something else."
"I could explain to the boys—"
"You go and ask Mrs. Lawrence if she won't step out on the porch," the other commanded; "she's my great-aunt, and I never asked anything of her before."
But Mrs. Lawrence was not sympathetic. She told Joe flatly that she never lent money, and that the water-set was as much as she could afford to give. "It ain't paid for, though," she added; "and if you'd rather have the money, I suppose I can send it back. But seems to me I shouldn't have been in such an awful hurry to git married; I should 'a' waited a month or so, till I had something to git married on. But you're just like your father—never had no calculation. Do you want I should return that silver?"
Joe hesitated. It was an easy way out of the difficulty. Then a vision of Esther rose before him, and the innocent preparations she had been making for the display of the gift; "No," he answered, shortly. And Mrs. Lawrence, with a shake of the shoulders as though she threw off all responsibility in her young relative's affairs, bustled away. "I'm going to keep that water-set if everything else has to go," he declared to the astonished Harry. "Let 'em set me out in the road; I guess I'll git along." He had a humorous vision of himself and Esther trudging forth, with the water-set between them, to seek their fortune.
He flung himself from the porch, and was confronted by Jonas Ingram. The old fellow emerged from behind a lilac-bush with a guilty yet excited air.
"Young man, I ain't given to eaves-dropping, but I was strollin' along here and I heered it all; and as I was calculatin' to give my niece a present—" He broke off and laid a hand on Joe's arm. "Where is that dod-blasted fool of a Lanham? I'll pay him; then I'll break every bone in his dum body!" he exclaimed, waxing profane. "Come here disturbin' decent folks' weddin's! Where is he?"
He started off down the path, striking out savagely with his stick. Joe watched him a moment, then put after him, and Harry Barker followed.