"'Oh, I hate to hev 'em sit thinkin' about me in behind their eyes,' s'she, ready. "'What?' says I, blank. "'It comes out through their eyes,' she says. 'They keep thinkin': Poor, poor, poor Elspie. If they was somebody dead't I could go to see,' she told me, smilin', 'I'd do that. A grave can't _poor_ you,' she told me, 'an' everybody that's company to you does.' "'Well!' says I, an' couldn't, in logic, say no more. "That evenin' Eb come in an' set down on the edge of a chair, experimental, like he was testin' the cane. "'Miss Cally,' s'e, when Elspie was out o' the room, 'you goin' t' let _her_ go with them folks to the Alice County poorhouse?' "I guess I dissembulated some under my eyelids--bein' I see t' Eb's mind was givin' itself little lurches. "'Well,' s'I, 'I don't see what that's wise I can do besides.' "He mulled that rill thorough, seein' to the back o' one hand with the other. "'Would you take her to board an' me pay for her board?' s'e, like he'd sneezed the _i_-dea an' couldn't help it comin'. "'Goodness!' s'I, neutral. "Eb sighed, like he'd got my refusal--Eb was one o' the kind that always thinks, if it clouds up, 't the sun is down on 'em personally. "'Oh,' s'I, bold an' swift, 'you great big ridiculous _man_!' "An' I'm blest if he didn't agree to that. "'I know I'm ridiculous,' s'he, noddin', sad. 'I know I'm that, Miss Cally.' "'Well, I didn't mean it that way,' s'I, reticent--an' said no more, with the exception of what I'd rilly meant. "'Why under the canopy,' I ask' him, for a hint, 'don't you take the Sum Merriman store, an' run it, an' live on your feet? I ain't any patience with a man,' s'I, 'that lives on his toes. Stomp some, why don't you, an' buy that store?' "An' his answer su'prised me. "'I did ask Mis' Fire Chief fer the refusal of it,' he said. 'I ask' her when I took my flowers to Sum, to-day--they was wild flowers I'd picked myself,' he threw in, so's I wouldn't think spendthrift of him. 'An' I'm to let her know this week, for sure.' "'Glory, glory, glory,' s'I, under my breath--like I'd seen a rill live soul, standin' far off on a hill somewheres, drawin' cuts to see whether it should come an' belong to Eb, or whether it shouldn't. XI LONESOME.--II