Dixie Hart | Page 4

sneering way, too. That reminds
me. I heard her mention my name when I passed you and her at the
spring the other day. I couldn't hear what she said, but from the way she
snickered I knew she was poking fun. I caught this much: she said that
I was the only man on earth who was fool enough to do something or
other. I couldn't hear what it was, and I didn't care much, but--" Henley
broke off, and for a moment his eyes rested on the averted face of his
companion.
"I don't carry tales," Dixie finally said, with a touch of embarrassment,
"but I've a good mind to tell you exactly what she said, Alfred, so that
you won't think it is worse than it really was. It wasn't such an awful

thing, and she was laughing more at her own smartness than at you.
She said--she said you was the only man under the sun who had gone
so far as to adopt a step-father-in-law. Now, that wasn't so terrible, was
it?"
A sickly smile struggled for existence on the face of the storekeeper,
and his color rose. "Well, that was a new way to put it, anyway," he
said. "I think I could laugh hearty at that joke if it was on some other
fellow, and I'm glad you told me what it was. I didn't know but what
she was saying something even nastier than that."
"She really said some nice things," Dixie went on, diplomatically. "She
said it was good of you to give a home to the Wrinkles, and--"
"As I said just now, I won't take credit for that," Henley broke in; "in
fact, I'd have refused if I could have done it. It come as a surprise, and
it almost knocked me silly. I'd counted on Hettie doing a good many
odd things, but I never expected that. So when she come home from the
camp-meeting, where there had been such a big religious upheaval, and
said she'd met the old man and woman there, and that they both looked
so lonely and peaked and ill-fed that she felt like she was acting
unfaithful to Dick's memory in living in one county and them in
another--well, that's the way it happened. I confess I never thought the
pair looked so bad when they come over, for they was awful cheerful,
and seemed to 'a' been fed on the fat of the land. Hettie told me
afterward that she'd been sending 'em all her spare change, so that was
explained. You'd never know the old woman was about unless you
stumbled over her in the dark, for she is as quiet as a mouse, and never
says a thing nor listens to anybody but him. He's all right. The old
man's all right. I really think I'd miss 'im if he was to leave. I never like
to encourage him too much, but I often laugh at the jokes he plays on
folks. People poke fun at me for having him around, but he drives off
the blues sometimes. He showed me what to expect from him the first
day he got here. He come down to the store, and walked in and looked
around till he saw the tobacco-boxes behind the counter, and he went to
'em and pulled a plug off of each one, and smelt of 'em and looked at
'em in the light. Then he took the best one and sidled over to me. He

run his hand down in his pocket, and I thought he was going to pay me
for it, but he was just hunting for his knife. He grinned as he clipped a
corner off the plug, and stuck it betwixt his short teeth. 'You'll find that
I'm a great chawer and smoker, Alf,' he said. Then he axed me if I had
such a thing as a empty dry-goods box about, and when I pointed to
some in the back-yard that I was saving to put seed-corn in, he said he'd
take one and wanted me to have the horses and wagon sent over for a
pig they had left. 'I wouldn't send for it,' he said, 'but it has got to be a
sort of pet. Its pen used to be right at our window, an' me an' the old
lady miss its squealing, especially in the morning. It is as good as an
alarm-clock.'"
The girl wiped a smile from her merry mouth. "Excuse me, Alfred," she
said, "but it does seem powerful funny. It must be the way you tell it."
"I'm glad it's funny to somebody, and you are more than excusable," he
said, dryly. "If I could get as good a joke as that on an enemy of