The Wiving of Lance Cleaverage

								

"I reckon we'd better not," he said finally. "Callista's scared.
She begged me into bringing my banjo to-day (you don't any of
you know the gal like I do), and now she's scared to listen to
it."
Callista barely raised her eyes at this speech, and spared to
make any denial.
"You-all that wants to dance on a Sunday [9] better go 'long
there," she said indifferently. "It's mighty near time for
preaching to begin, and you've got a right smart walk over to
the Derf place." Dismissing them thus coolly from her world, she
addressed herself once more to pinning a bunch of ochre and
crimson azaleas into the trimming of her broad hat.
"Lance," drawled Buck Fuson, "I hear you' cuttin' timber on yo'
land. Aimin' to put up a cabin--fixin' to wed?"
The newcomer shrugged his shoulders, but made no reply.
"When I heared it, I 'lowed Callista had named the day,"
persisted Fuson.
"Have ye, Callista?" Rilly Trigg put in daringly, as neither of
the principals seemed disposed to speak.
"The names that the days have already got suits me well enough,"
Callista observed drily. "I don't know why I should go namin'
ary one of 'em over again."
There was a great laugh at this, of which Cleaverage appeared
entirely oblivious.
"Yes," he began quietly, when it had subsided, "I'm about to put
me up a house--I like to be a-buildin'--a man might as well
improve his property. There's one gal that wants me mighty bad,
and has wanted me for a long while; sometimes I'm scared she'll
get me. Reckon I might as well be ready." [10]

"Ye hear that, Callisty?" crowed little Rilly Trigg. "Ye hear
that! Have ye told him adzackly the kind of house ye want? I
'low ye ort."
"Put a little yellow side o' that red," advised Callista
composedly, busying herself wholly with the hat Rilly was
trimming. "There--don't you think that looks better?"
Rilly made a face at Fuson and Cleaverage, and laughed.
"No need to ask her which nor whether," said Lance nonchalantly.
"Any place I am is bound to suit Callista. I intend that my
house shall be the best in the Turkey Tracks; but if it wasn't
she'd never find it out, long as I was there."
Again there was a chorus of appreciative laughter.
"How's that, Callista--is it so for a fact?" inquired Fuson,
eager to see the game go on.
Callista opened her beautiful eyes wide, and smiled with lazy
scorn.
"Truly, I'm suited with whatever Lance Cleaverage builds, and
wherever and whenever he builds. Let it be what it may, it's
nothing to me."
"You Rilly!" called a shrill feminine voice from the direction
of the church. "Bring the basket."
"Help me with it, Buck," said Aurilla, and the two started down
the slope together.
"Now," suggested Lance, with an affectation of reluctance, "if
the rest of you-all don't mind giving us the place here, I
reckon Callista's got [11] a heap that she wants to say to me,
and she's ashamed to speak out before folks."