“I see you remember that,” Pole went on. “Well, you know, too, that he was goin' with Minnie a lot about that time—takin' her buggy-ridin' an' to meet-in'. He was a devil in pants, Jeff—his whole family was bad. The men in it would refuse the last call to go in at the gate o' heaven ef a designin' woman was winkin' at 'em on the outside. Well, Thad started fer Mexico one day, an' at the same time Minnie went on a visit to yore brother Joe in Calhoun.”
“She went thar a year ago,” Wade put in, “fer I bought 'er ticket myself at Darley.”
“She told you she went to Calhoun.” Pole's eyes were mercifully averted. “Jeff, I met her an' Thad down in Atlanta.”
Wade caught his breath. He shook from head to foot as with a chill.
“You say—Pole, you say—”
“Yes, I met 'em comin' out o' the Globe Hotel—that little resort jest off'n Decatur Street. They was comin' out o' the side-door, an' me an' them met face to face. Minnie, she turned as white as a sheet, but Thad sorter laughed like it was a good joke, an' winked at me. I bowed to 'em an' passed on, but I seed 'em lookin' back, an' then they motioned to me to stop, an' they come to me. Minnie set in to cryin' an' begun tellin' me not to take the news back home—that her an' Thad loved each other so much she jest had to play the trick on you an' go as fur as Atlanta with 'im. She said he was comin' back after he got located, an' that they was goin' to git decently married an' so on. An' that devilish Thad smiled an' sorter pulled his cheek down from his left eye an' said, 'Yes, Pole, we are a-goin' to git married. That is, when the proper times comes.'”
A sigh escaped Jeff Wade's tense lips.
“Are you plumb shore the two done wrong down thar, Baker?” he asked.
Pole pulled his mustache and looked at the ground. A smile dawned and died on his face.
“Well, I reckon they wasn't down thar to attend a Sunday-school convention, Jeff. They didn't have that look to me. But I was so worried fer fear I mought be doin' a woman injustice in my mind, that, after they left me, to make sure, I went in the office o' the hotel. The clerk was standin' thar doin' nothin', an' so I axed 'im who that young couple was that had jest gone out, an' he laughed an' said they was a newly married pair from up in the mountains—'Mr. an' Mrs. Sam Buncombe,' an' he showed me whar Thad had writ the names in his scrawlin' hand-write on the book. The clerk said that fer a freshly linked couple they headed off any he'd ever had in his bridal-chamber. He said they was orderin' some sort o' drink every minute in the day, an' that they made so much racket overhead that he had to stop 'em several times. He said they danced jigs an' sung nigger songs. He said he'd never married hisse'f—that he'd always been afeard to make the riffle, but that ef he could be shore matrimony was like that, that he'd find him a consort 'fore sundown or break his neck tryin'.”