"I've had seven of 'em," she continued, "an' I know. My father give me a cemetery lot for a weddin' present, with a noble grey marble monumint in it shaped like a octagon--leastways that's what a school-teacher what boarded with us said it was, but I call it a eight-sided piece. I'm speakin' of my first marriage now, my dear. My father never give me no weddin' present but the once. An' I can't never marry again, 'cause there's a husband lyin' now on seven sides of the monumint an' only one place left for me. I was told once that I could have further husbands cremationed an' set around the lot in vases, but I don't take to no such heathenish custom as that. "So I've got to go through my declinin' years without no suitable companion an' I call it hard, when one's so used to marryin' as what I be." "If they're all savages," suggested Dorothy, "why did you keep on marrying?" "Because I hadn't no other way to get my livin' an' I was kinder in the habit of it. There's some little variety, even in savages, an' it's human natur' to keep on a-hopin.' I've had 'em stingy an' generous, drunk an' sober, peaceful an' disturbin'. After the first few times, I learned to take real pleasure out'n their queer notions. When you've learned to enjoy seein' your husband make a fool of himself an' have got enough self-control not to tell him he's doin' it, nor to let him see where your pleasure lies, you've got marryin' down to a fine point. "The third time, it was, I got a food crank, an' let me tell you right now, my dear, them's the worst kind. A man what's queer about his food is goin' to be queerer about a'most everything else. Give me any man that can eat three square meals a day an' enjoy 'em, an' I'll undertake to live with him peaceful, but I don't go to the altar again with no food crank, if I know it. "It was partly my own fault, too, as I see later. I'd seen him a-carryin' a passel of health food around in his pocket an' a-nibblin' at it, but I supposed it was because the poor creeter had never had no one to cook proper for him, an' I took a lot of pleasure out of thinkin' how tickled he'd be when I made him one of my chicken pies. "After we was married, we took a honeymoon to his folks, an' I'll tell you right now, my dear, that if there was more honeymoons took beforehand to each other's folks, there'd be less marryin' done than what there is. They was all a-eatin' hay an' straw an' oats just like the dumb creeters they disdained, an' a-carryin' wheat an' corn around in their pockets to piece out with between greens. "So the day we got home, never knowin' what I was a-stirrin' up for myself, I turned in an' made a chicken an' oyster pie, an' it couldn't be beat, not if I do say it as shouldn't. The crust was as soft an' flaky an' brown an' crisp at the edges as any I ever turned out, an' the inside was all chicken an' oysters well-nigh smothered in a thick, creamy yellow gravy.