"That hain't the main thing, Alfred." The old woman raised her hands to her face and laughed immoderately. "Pomp had no sooner gone off with the answer and a big bunch of roses Carrie gathered and sent with it, when she run over to tell me about it and to borrow my cape. She 'lowed it mought be cool drivin' back behind sech a fast hoss as Jim's new one, an' she didn't have a thing heavy enough to throw over her shoulders. Johnny was a-settin' in the corner of the kitchen unbeknownst to her, and heard all she said. An', la me, what you reckon he done? He up an' laid down law an' gospel right on the spot, bless you! Jim Cahews wasn't goin' a step with 'er. Johnny could afford to hire a livery-stable team if he had to borrow the money, an' he was goin' to take 'er."
"That was a corker, wasn't it?" Henley exclaimed, with a pleased laugh. "What did Carrie say to that?"
"Looked like she hardly knowed what to say," was the old woman's reply. "Him an' her stood starin' smack dab at each other fer a minute, and then—just think of it!—she begun to beg the boy not to interfere with her doin's, and pleaded an' wheedled an' went on at a powerful rate. But Johnny stood as firm as the rock o' Gibralty, an' told 'er, he did, that his plighted wife jest shouldn't run about an' disgrace 'em right on the eve of marriage, and said a lot about folks walkin' over dead bodies an' swimmin' rivers o' blood, an' the like. Well, all that finally made Carrie mad, an' she told 'im he was jest a boy, an' that she had never meant to marry 'im, nohow. An' while he stood gaspin' fer breath she lit in to beggin' him not to tell nobody about the'r little flirtation. She said folks would think it was silly of her, an' if Jim Cahews meant business, which it looked like he did, a tale like that might sp'ile her chances."
"Huh," grunted Henley, "she was getting down to bedrock, wasn't she?"
"Well, I don't blame 'er," said the widow, charitably. "Many a good, married woman wouldn't want all her girlish pranks to reach the ear of the man she finally settled down with, an' I reckon Jim Cahews wants 'er. They say he's tired chasin' after Julia Hardcastle, an' Carrie may suit. Johnny tuck it awful hard. After she went home he come an' laid his head in my lap an' sobbed out good an' strong. I was never tickled by grief of a child o' mine before; but even while my eyes an' throat was full, a laugh would rise in me that I couldn't hold in. But he didn't catch on—he 'lowed I was cryin', too. After a while he set up an' wiped his eyes. 'I reckon,' said he, 'that I've been the fool everybody said I was, but I'm goin' to let women alone till I'm old enough to understand 'em.'"
"He'll let 'em alone a long time, then," said Henley, with a dry smile, as he turned away.
The following Monday morning Henley found Cahews busy in the front part of the store cleaning up and putting things straight on the shelves. As soon as he saw his employer, Jim walked from behind the counter and extended his hand: "Put it right there, Alf, an' give it a good, tight shake," he grinned. "Richard is hisself at last. It's been an awful up-hill fight, but I'm there—gee whiz! I'm there, an' don't you forget it."
"So you really like Carrie? Well, I thought maybe you and her—"
"Carrie, hell! It's the other—damn it! Huh! you may think you know some'n about women, but don't I? I was a long time learning how to turn the trick, but I'm an expert now. I had the time of my life. It was a clean walk-over from start to finish. I had the bit in my teeth, an' I went ahead like the woods afire. I driv' around to Carrie's house, dressed to kill. I had on my plug-hat, silk vest, light-gray pants, dark-blue coat, and my new patent-leather shoes. I put the old gal in by me an' away we shot. I saw that drummer and Julia ahead on a straight piece of road plodding along like they was hauling a load of wood to town, and I chirped to my Kentucky blue-blood, and, with Carrie's ribbons flying in the wind like the flags of a war-ship, we passed like a cannon-ball, leaving 'em in a cloud of dust as thick as a Texas sand-storm. And the funniest part was that I didn't, somehow, care a dern. I was on a new basis, an' believed in it."
"Well, you know I advised—" Henley began, but the eager clerk broke in: