The Wiving of Lance Cleaverage

								

with a bubble of apparently unsubduable amusement in his tone.
"I reckon you're a-doin' the settin' up; everybody seems to
understand it so. I just mentioned that the rest of the folks
had left you and me alone together, and I was goin' on to say
that I began to suffer in the prospect of offerin' you my
company up to the church-house. Lord, some gals will make
courtin' out of anything!"
A subdued snicker sounded from the screen of leafage behind the
spring. Several young people lingered there for the fun of
hearing Lance Cleaverage and Callista Gentry fuss. The red began
to show itself in the girl's smooth, fair cheeks. She caught her
wide hat by its strings and got suddenly to her feet.
"Well, to tell you the truth, Mr. Lance Cleaverage," she said
coldly, "I never took enough notice of you to see was you
courtin' me or some other girl; and I'll thank you now to step
yourself out of my way and let me get on to the church-house.
I've got to lead the tribble, come service time. I [14] can't
stand fooling here with you, nor werry my-self to notice are
you courting me or somebody else."
She held her graceful head very high. If she swung the hat by
its strings a thought too rapidly, it was the only sign she gave
of any excitement as she gained the path.
Cleaverage ranged himself beside her, leaving the banjo in the
bushes. "All right--all right," he remarked in a pacifying tone.
"I'm willin' to walk up to the door with you, if that's what's
troublin' you so greatly; but I don't want to go in and sit
alongside of you on the middle seats. You take your place on the
women's side, like a good gal, and let me have some peace,
settin' over with the men."
For a moment she was dumb. Half a dozen had pushed into view,
and were listening to them now. They all understood that Lance
knew well enough she must sit with the singers, yet his open
refusal to accompany her to the middle seats, where the courting
couples generally found place, was not the less galling.
"Tell him you won't never step yo' foot in church beside him,
Callista," prompted a man's voice, and Flenton Hands stepped out
on the path, twisting a bit of sassafras in his fingers and
looking from one to the other with quick shiftings of his gray
eyes.
Lance laughed radiantly but soundlessly, his [15] face and eyes
shining with mirthful defiance. The girl looked down and trifled
with her hat ribbons.
"Why don't you say it?" inquired Cleaverage at length. Hands
leaned forward and stared eagerly at her, his mouth a little
open and his breath coming quick. He had always been the most
pertinacious of Callista's followers; an older man than any of
the others, he brought to bear on his wooing the persistence and
determination of his years.
Callista just glanced at the younger man, and let her gaze rest
on Hands.
"What's the use of telling him what he already knows mighty well
and good?" she said finally.
"Give me the pleasure of walking up with you this morning,