"Well," Josh said, removing his pipe from his lips and spitting thoughtfully, "seems Mis' Graham's bound to get some kind of a husband!" Then he chuckled, and thrust his pipe back under his long, shaven upper lip. "Now look a-here, Josh Butterfield; you don't want to be talkin' that way," his wife said, bitterly. "Bad enough to have folks that don't know no better pokin' fun at her; but I ain't a-goin' to have you do it." "Well, I was only just sayin'--" "Well, don't you say it; that's all." Josh poked a gnarled thumb down into the bowl of his pipe, reflectively. "You ain't got a match about you, have you, Emmy?" he said, coaxingly. Mrs. Butterfield rose and went into the kitchen to get the match; when she handed it to him, she said, sighing, "I'm just 'most sick over it." "You do seem consid'able shuck up," Josh said, kindly. "Well,--I know Lizzie's just doin' it out of pure goodness; but she'll 'most starve." "I don't see myself how she's calculatin' to run things," Josh ruminated; "course Jim's pension wa'n't much, but it was somethin'. And without it--" "Without it?--land! Is the government goin' to stop pensions? There! I never did like the President!" "No; the government ain't goin' to stop it. Lizzie Graham's goin' to stop it." "What on airth you talkin' about?" "Why, Emmy woman, don't ye know the United States government ain't no such fool as to go on payin' a woman for havin' a dead husband when she catches holt of a livin' one? Don't you know that?" "Josh Butterfield!--you don't mean--" "Why, that's true. Didn't you know that? Well, well! Why, a smart widow woman could get consid'able of a income by sendin' husbands to wars, if it wa'n't for that. Well, well; to think you didn't know that! Wonder if Lizzie does?" "She don't!" Mrs. Butterfield said, excitedly; "course she don't. She's calculatin' on havin' that pension same as ever. Why, she _can't_ marry Nat. Goodness! I guess I'll just step down and tell her. Lucky you told me to-night; to-morrow it would 'a' been too late!" IV Lizzie Graham was sitting in the dark on her door-step; a cat had curled up comfortably in her lap; her elm was faintly murmurous with a constant soft rustling and whispering of the lace of leaves around its great boughs. Now and then a tree-toad spoke, or from the pasture pond behind the house came the metallic twang of a bullfrog. But nothing else broke the deep stillness of the summer night. Lizzie's elbow was on her knee, her chin in her hand; she was listening to the peace, and thinking--not anxiously, but seriously. After all, it was a great undertaking: Nathaniel wasn't "hearty," perhaps,--but when you don't average four eggs a day (for in November and December the hens do act like they are possessed!); when sometimes your cow will be dry; when your neighbor is mad and won't remember the potato-barrel--the outlook for one is not simple; for two it is sobering.