I didn't say anything. I sort of waited, not so much to see what he was going to do as to see what I was going to do. Then he didn't say anything. But he put his arm around me, and put his hand around my arm. I let him. I wasn't mad, so I didn't pretend. "Let's us sit down here," he says. We sat under a big tree and he drew my head down on his shoulder. "You're all kinds of a peach," he says, "that's what you are, Cossy--I bet you've known for weeks I want you to marry me. Ain't you?" "Yes," I says, "I s'pose I have." He laughed. "You're a funny girl," he says. "It's silly to pretend," I says. "You bet," he says, "it's silly to pretend. Give me a kiss, then. Kiss me yourself." I did. I had to see whether I was pretending not to want to, or whether I really didn't want to. I see right away that I didn't want to. "Marry me, Cossy," he says. "Will you?" I was twenty years old. For a long time Ma had been asking me why I didn't marry some nice young man. "Marry some nice young man," she says. "You'll be happier, Cossy." Why would I be happier, I wondered. What would make me happy? There would be, I supposed, a great deal of this kind of thing. I thought it was honest to talk it over with Luke. "What for?" I says. "Because I love you," says Luke serious; "and I want you." I laughed out loud. "Them's funny reasons for a bargain," I says. He kind of drew off. "Oh, well," he says, "it's all I've got. If you don't think it amounts to anything--" "That's why you should marry me," I says. "But I want to know why I should marry you." "Don't you love me?" says Luke. "I donno," I told him. "I don't like to kiss you so very well." "Cossy, listen," Luke said. "All that'll come. Honest, it will, dear. Just trust me, and marry me. I need you." "Well, but, Luke," I says, "I donno if I need you. I don't believe I do." "You listen here," he says, sort of mad. "You'll have a home of your own--" "Why, wouldn't I live on your folks's farm?" I says. "Oh, well, yes," Luke says. "But--I love you, Cossy!" he ends up. "Can't you understand? I love you." He said it like the reason. I begun to think it was. "You've got to marry somebody," says Luke. I knew that well enough. Home was bad enough now, but when one of the boys brought a wife there it would be worse. I'd have to marry somebody. "I'd like to get away from home," I says. "Ma and I don't get along, and Pa's like a bear the whole time." "You'd ought not to say such things, Cossy," says Luke. "Why not?" I says. "They're true. That is about the only reason I can think of why I should marry you. That, and because I've got to marry somebody." I thought he'd be mad. Instead, he had his arms around me and was kissing me. "I don't care what you marry me for," he says. "Marry me, anyhow!" I thought: "I s'pose I'd get used to him. I don't like the boys, either. I can't bear Henny. Every girl seems to act as if it was all right, after she gets away. Maybe it is."