The neighbor scootled, backward it seemed, to the road. I took the trouble myself to go down to a trail and come up casually from another direction, in full view of Len. He was working mightily, digging up a hill with two strokes of his hoe. “Dan gone?” I asked indifferently. “Ay, he lit out. Old Nance wanted him, I reckon. He dassen’t stay a minute after she fixes the clock fer him.” “That’s a kind of trouble you and Reenie don’t have.” “You’ve said it now. Reenie don’t keep no time on me. If I want to drap over the mountain to see if I can git old man Diller’s mule fer extry ploughin’, ’cause the crab-grass is elbowin’ along the ground ’most rootin’ up my corn, an’ tells Reenie I’ll be back by twelve, an’ I find the old man spilin’ a ox-yoke, an’ I shapes it up fer him an’ stays to dinner, an’ comes back by the meetin’-house where they’s puttin’ in the new windows an’ not gittin’ ’em plumb, an’ I stays till sundown settin’ ’em in so they won’t make everybody ’at passes think he’s gone cross-eyed, an’ I remembers we’ve got no coffee, so I slips round by the store an’ stays till dark talkin’ with Tim Frizbie about the best way to grow fat corn an’ lean cobs, ’cause I know you want me to git all the new idies I can, an’ when I strikes Granny Groom’s place she’s at the gate wantin’ me to talk to her Lizy’s girl who’s fixin’ to leave an’ strollop over the country, an’ I says to that girl when you’re at home you’re eatin’ welcome bread, and when you’re out in the world you don’t know what you’re eatin’, an’ a lot more that was aplenty, an’s I pass Mis’ Woodlow’s, who’s got a powerful bad risin’, I thinks I’ll stop an’ see if her jaw’s broke yit, an’ I finds ol’ Jim so out o’ heart about her, I stays to help him put over a couple o’ hours, an’ when I walks in home about midnight, Reenie she’s gone to bed sensible, an’ says there’s bread an’ beans in the cupboard. Now that’s what I call some comfort to a man, to know he can take what happens ’long the road, an’ know his wife ain’t frettin’ till her stomach’s gone an’ she’s as lean as a splinter like ol’ Nance Goforth.” “You nearly got what you wanted when you married, didn’t you, Len?” “Well, I reckon, but I didn’t know it from the start-off. Reenie was powerful to be agoin’, an’ I couldn’t git used to draggin’ off every Saturday night to stay till Monday mornin’. But I felt different about it after I’d nearly killed her an’ the baby.” “Gracious, was it that bad?”