"'May you live long and happy years together,' says the preacher, and he had a different look on his face--more's if it was a pleasure instead of business he was attendin' to. "Whilest we stood there, kinder awk'ard, Charley made a high play. He gathered all his winnings in a heap. 'For laly,' says he, makin' her a bow. "Maggy, she cried. Everybody'd been so good to her, she said, and she weren't able to turn a hand for her part, and so forth, and we was all kind of pleasantly miserable for a while, till Jim sings out, 'Here, this ain't no weddin' hilarity--guide right to the bar!' "There we all lined up, Charlie High-ball and all. "'What'll you have, sir?' says Jim, askin' the minister first out of manners. "'The same as the rest,' says the minister like a man. "'Mr. Scraggs?' says Jim. "'Ginger ale, says I. And every man and woman took ginger ale, which is a beverage that 'ud drive a man to drink. Howsomever, we showed that preacher he didn't hold over us, speck nor color, when it come to a showdown. And he savvied the play, too. He watched the line drinkin' its ginger ale. "'Gentlemen,' says he, 'I'm glad to know you--I think I'll stay in your town a while, but now'--and he kind of twinkled around the eyes--'I hope you will excuse me.' With that he vanished, leaving us to take a little antidote for that there ginger ale. "And Pete and Maggy? Well, dear friends and brothers, you never saw nothin' like it--they think as much of each other as two men would! And the way Pete can iron a b'iled shirt is a wonder. . . . Yaas; he found his job at last; plain and decorative ironin'. Often I've seen Maggy, holdin' up a batch of clo's, with pride just oozin' out of her, and heard her say, 'There ain't a person in these here United States that kin slip a flatiron over dry-goods the way my Pete kin.'" VII THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH "Once upon a time," said Mr. Scraggs, "there come a profound peace on my household. It was 'Zeke, what kin I give you for dinner to-day?' and 'Zeke' this and that, until I says to myself, 'We're going to have cyclones followed by a heavy frost if I tarry here,' so I pulled my freight to Arizona, till this unnatural condition of things passed away. I understand Mrs. Scraggs in her war-paint, but Mrs. Scraggs with her eyes uprolled to Heaven and a white dove perched on each and every ear is a thing I'm not goin' to witness the spoilin' of, if I kin help it. "I loafed around a little town, wearin' the counters shiny, entertainin' myself every minute by wonderin' what in thunder I'd do with the next one, till Fate, that's always seemed ready and eager to butt into my affairs, sent me down to the railroad station one morning.