“I want to buy me a right good suit of clothes,” returned Ross, mildly.
The man in the back of the store, staring at the two, began to wonder when old Jabe would take advantage of the opening offered him.
“Err-um,” grunted Turrentine. “Somethin’ to be buried in—eh?”
“Well—no,” demurred the customer, amiably. “Somethin’ to be married in. A weddin’ suit is what I’m a-seekin’.”
Beath’s eyes went without any volition of his own to a bolt of fine white muslin on the shelf. From that Vesta had chosen a dress pattern the day her father bade him ask her in marriage. His proposal had been bafflingly received, but she had chosen the dress and taken it with her to her Aunt Miranda’s to finish.
Meantime, as though his customer had been any mountain man of the district, the storekeeper calmly estimated Ross’s height and breadth, turned to his shelves, and pulled down a suit. The two immersed themselves in a discussion of fabric and cut. The assistant, used to old Jabe’s browbeating, could scarcely believe his eyes as he noted the glances of approval his employer gave to the goodly proportions he was fitting. Beath’s ears seemed to him equally unreliable when Turrentine, a big man himself, remarked with apparent geniality on the chance of a wrestling-bout between them.
“I ain’t backin’ off,” responded Adene, “but I’d ruther stand up to you when I didn’t have somethin’ else on hand.”
“Aw, I’m gittin’ old,” said Turrentine, deprecatingly. “Time was when you might have said such of me; but I’m gittin’ old.”
The blue eyes of the younger man looked ingenuously into the face so like Vesta’s.
“Well, we’re all gettin’ older day by day,” Ross allowed, “but yet you don’t look as though you was losin’ your stren’th, an’ that’s a fact.”