Skeeter had entertained no idea of making love to Dainty when he called to see her, having had an entirely different purpose. But as he did not know exactly how to approach the subject which he wished to discuss, he decided to follow her line of conversation, hoping to direct it at a later time. “Yes’m, dat’s so,” Skeeter remarked without enthusiasm. “De fack is, I wus so busy dat I looked over de chance to ax you to marry me yistiddy, so I comed early dis mawnin’ to git in a word ’bout dat----” “I tole de two yuther men dey wus losin’ time, an’ I tells you dat same word in eggsvance.” “Of co’se, I don’t expeck you to fall right in wid dat suggestion,” Skeeter hastened to say. “But I wants you to know whut way I is leanin’.” “You done took a notion to lean mighty sudden,” Dainty snapped. “You better lean de yuther way. You ain’t able to suppote no wife.” “Whut’s de use of gittin’ able to suppote somepin you ain’t got?” Skeeter asked absently. “Us owns a hoss befo’ us buys any hoss-feed.” The girl made no reply. After a while Skeeter added another remark in an absent-minded way: “Sometimes niggers buys a hoss an’ depen’s on stealin’ de hoss-feed. Dey always gits in trouble wid de white folks, too, when dey does dat.” Instantly the girl’s manner changed completely. She bit her lips and her hands began to tremble. She looked as if dizziness and weakness were about to overcome her. “When a nigger gits in trouble wid de white folks, it’s all off wid him,” Skeeter blundered on, his mind upon Hitch Diamond, and all unconscious of the impression he was making upon the girl beside him. “Sometimes luck is wid him an’ he kin run off, but most often he----” Suddenly Skeeter broke off and looked at Dainty with popping eyes. For the moment he had forgotten the tragedy in the girl’s life, and now he was struck speechless, and merely sat there and stared and gasped. At last he murmured: “I done slopped de wrong pig!” “Dat’s right, Skeeter,” the girl said in a bitter tone. “De best thing you kin do is to ramble outen dis yard an’ don’t come back no more.” “I didn’t mean nothin’, Dainty,” Skeeter said humbly. “I’s done had a heap of trouble, an’ it ’pears like I ain’t got my real good sense.” “Dat’s a fack,” Dainty said. “I won’t never do it no mo’,” Skeeter pleaded. “Dat’s a fack,” Dainty announced. She arose and walked into the house. Skeeter remained seated upon the bench, trying to think up some way to square himself with the girl, but his mind would not work with its usual facility. Then in the yard on the other side of the house there was a loud, angry squall, followed by the wild, frightened squawking of a hen, and Ginny Babe Chew waddled around to where Skeeter was sitting. At the corner of the house there was a barrel of rain-water setting under a gutter-spout, and into this water Ginny Babe ducked the hen viciously a number of times. She tossed the hen on the ground, where it lay gasping for air and half drowned.