"It was the fashion in that day for all the neighbors to entertain a newly married couple. Some would invite 'em to dinner, and some to supper, and then the bride and groom would have to do the same for the neighbors, and then the honeymoon'd be over, and they'd settle down and go to work like ordinary folks. We had Harvey and Mary over to dinner, and they asked us to supper. I ricollect how nice the table looked with Mary's new blue and white china and some o' the old-fashioned silver that'd been in the family for generations. And the supper matched the table, for Mary wasn't the kind that expects company to satisfy their hunger by lookin' at china and silver. She was a fine cook like her mother before her. Amos and Marthy Matthews had been invited, too, and we had a real pleasant time laughin' and jokin' like folks always do about young married people. After supper we all went out on the porch, and Mary whispered to me and Marthy to come and see her china closet and pantry. You know how proud a young housekeeper is of such things. She showed us all through the back part o' the house, and we praised everything and told her it looked like old experienced housekeepin' instead of a bride's. "Well, when we went back to the dinin'-room on our way to the porch, if there wasn't Harvey bendin' over the table countin' the silver teaspoons! A man always looks out o' place doin' such things, and I saw Mary's face turn red to the roots of her hair. But nobody said anything, and we passed on through and left Harvey still countin'. It was a little thing, but I couldn't help thinkin' how queer it was for a man that hadn't been married two weeks to leave his company and go back to the table to count spoons, and I asked myself how I'd 'a' felt if I'd found Abram countin' spoons durin' the honeymoon. "Did you ever take a walk, child, some cloudy night when everything's covered up by the darkness, and all at once there'll be a flash o' lightnin' showin' up everything jest for a second? Well, that's the way it is with people's lives. Near as Harvey and Mary lived to me, and friendly as we were, I couldn't tell what was happenin' between 'em. But every now and then, as the months went by, and the years, I'd see or hear somethin' that was like a flash of light in a dark place. Sometimes it was jest a look, but there's mighty little a look can't tell; and as for actions, you know they speak louder than words. I ricollect one Sunday Harvey and Mary was walkin' ahead o' me and Abram. There was a rough piece o' road jest in front of the church, and I heard Harvey say: 'Don't walk there, come over on the side where it's smooth.'