“On the contrary,” replied John, “it interests me very much. I was thinking,” he added, “that probably the state of your wife’s health had a good deal to do with her actions and views of things, but it must have been pretty hard on you all the same.”
“Wa’al, yes,” said David, “I guess that’s so. Her health wa’n’t jes’ right, an’ she showed it in her looks. I noticed that she’d pined an’ pindled some, but I thought the’ was some natural criss-crossedniss mixed up into it too. But I tried to make allow’nces an’ the best o’ things, an’ git along ’s well ’s I could; but things kind o’ got wuss an’ wuss. I told ye that she begun to have notions about me, an’ ’tain’t hardly nec’sary to say what shape they took, an’ after a while, mebbe a year ’n a half, she got so ’t she wa’n’t satisfied to know where I was nights—she wanted to know where I was daytimes. Kind o’ makes me laugh now,” he observed, “it seems so redic’lous; but it wa’n’t no laughin’ matter then. If I looked out o’ winder she’d hint it up to me that I was watchin’ some woman. She grudged me even to look at a picture paper; an’ one day when we happened to be walkin’ together she showed feelin’ about one o’ them wooden Injun women outside a cigar store.”
“Oh, come now, Mr. Harum,” said John, laughing.
“Wa’al,” said David with a short laugh, “mebbe I did stretch that a little; but ’s I told ye, she wanted to know where I was daytimes well ’s nights, an’ ev’ry once ’n a while she’d turn up at my bus’nis place, an’ if I wa’n’t there she’d set an’ wait fer me, an’ I’d either have to go home with her or have it out in the office. I don’t mean to say that all the sort of thing I’m tellin’ ye of kep’ up all the time. It kind o’ run in streaks; but the streaks kep’ comin’ oftener an’ oftener, an’ you couldn’t never tell when the’ was goin’ to appear. Matters ’d go along putty well fer a while, an’ then, all of a sudden, an’ fer nothin’ ’t I could see, the’ ’d come on a thunder shower ’fore you c’d git in out o’ the wet.”
“Singular,” said John thoughtfully.
“Yes, sir,” said David. “Wa’al, it come along to the second spring, ’bout the first of May. She’d ben more like folks fer about a week mebbe ’n she had fer a long spell, an’ I begun to chirk up some. I don’t remember jest how I got the idee, but f’m somethin’ she let drop I gathered that she was thinkin’ of havin’ a new bunnit. I will say this for her,” remarked David, “that she was an economical woman, an’ never spent no money jest fer the sake o’ spendin’ it. Wa’al, we’d got along so nice fer a while that I felt more ’n usual like pleasin’ her, an’ I allowed to myself that if she wanted a new bunnit, money shouldn’t stand in the way, an’ I set out to give her a supprise.”
They had reached the level at the top of the long hill and the horses had broken into a trot, when Mr. Harum’s narrative was interrupted and his equanimity upset by the onslaught of an excessively shrill, active, and conscientious dog of the “yellow” variety, which barked and sprang about in front of the mares with such frantic assiduity as at last to communicate enough of its excitement to them to cause them to bolt forward on a run, passing the yellow nuisance, which, with the facility of long practice, dodged the cut which David made at it in passing. It was with some little trouble that the horses were brought back to a sober pace.
“Dum that dum’d dog!” exclaimed David with fervor, looking back to where the object of his execrations was still discharging convulsive yelps at the retreating vehicle, “I’d give a five-dollar note to git one good lick at him. I’d make him holler ‘pen-an’-ink’ once! Why anybody’s willin’ to have such a dum’d, wuthless, pestiferous varmint as that ’round ’s more ’n I c’n
