Contemptuously the maiden answered. "'Course not! You are a very ignorant boy. We just stand up before father and say 'I will,' and 'Yes' and 'It is' or 'I do' and short things like that. Father does all the rest." Then Ruth explained the ceremony, and described minutely the scene she had witnessed an hour ago in her own home. "That's easy enough," said Cyrus. "Anybody can say those things." "Everybody does it," said Ruth. Cyrus smiled; it seemed a smile of relief. "That's funny. I'd always thought being married was kind of important, and kind of--kind of--lasted a mighty long time." "It does. It lasts forever. That is why it is so beautiful and lovely. Everybody is better forever and ever." Cyrus frowned. "I don't know." "Don't know what?" "I don't like the--the long time. S'pose we got enough of it. We'd have to keep on just the same." "Oh, Cyrus! Would you get tired of me?" "No, 'course not! Nobody could ever do that! But s'pose I died in a few days, would you have to be married all the rest of your life to a dead boy?" "Yes, and I would be very faithful to your memory. I would never marry anybody else and I would put lovely flowers on your grave every day." "Ho! I don't believe that!" "Yes I would!" Cyrus put both hands on his knees, stiffened his arms, straightened up and drew a long breath of the morning air. "Anyway, I'd rather be alive." "Of course you would! So would almost anybody for a time. But you are very silly and ignorant if you think being married is going to kill you." "'Course I don't!" "Then you mustn't say such things." "I guess I only just meant that if I was married I'd rather be alive than dead. But what do we have to do after we are married?" "Oh, everything--just what other folks do, of course." "And what's that?" "Why--sit opposite each other at breakfast, go around together, and own things together, and have the same pew at church. You at one end and me at the other, with our children between us." Cyrus frowned. "Our children?" Ruth nodded. "But I never heard of a boy eight years old having real children." Ruth closed her eyes in solemn meditation. Cyrus, after waiting in vain for an answer said, with a laugh: "Think of me with real children, p'r'aps biggern I am! They could lick me in a fight." And he laughed. "That is funny, isn't it?" And he gave her arm a shake, as if to wake her up. At the sound of laughter Zac, sitting on the step below, cocked his ears, wagged his tail and sidled up closer to Cyrus, who reached forward, gathered up the loose skin at the back of Zac's neck and gave him a friendly shake. "Anyway," said Ruth, "everybody ought to get married. Your father and mother and my father and mother were all married." "Yes, I s'pose they were." "Of course they were. They would be ashamed not to. All good and wise people marry. Why, King Solomon, who was wiser than anybody, had seven hundred wives." "How many?" "Seven hundred." "Seven hundred! Oh, get out!" "But he did!"