“I shall be glad to let you have another,” I replied, “and will certainly bring it with me.” After profusely thanking me the old man added, “And I’ll give you some mushrooms, you knows well I ain’t one o’ the ungrateful sort, and if the folks as say we are, had nobody to stand at back of ’em and say a good word, why they might be different from what they are. “To say the good word for us sometimes would be little enough to do, the Almighty knows, but no, they side with money always, it don’t matter what a man does if he’s got money, he’ll always get helped. But Rye, look here, do you think such folks can be real happy with all their money? I don’t. I’ve just read about a man who shot his wife because she wasn’t true to him, and they had lots o’ money it said, but to my way o’ thinking, if two folks really love one another, nothing else matters; you can buy a house, you can buy land, but love ain’t bought with money. A man may not have a shirt to his back, but when love ‘brews’ inside him, he’s bound to be happy. My missis and me have been married now over forty years, and the older we gets the more we loves one another; God’s in heaven and He knows that’s how it should be, and my missis has always been true to me; if she hadn’t been, I love her so as I could kill her,—yes, I could, and then die like a man and meet her t’other side. “My daughter Videy, you know, is engaged to ——, and he says he loves the very shoes she wears. More than once he’s had to fight for her, and he hasn’t allus come off best, still I admires him for it, for he can’t abear for anybody to say anything agin her. “She teases him anyhow, and she’s silly to do so,—I tell her she’ll get a tatto yeck one o’ these days, but she only laughs and says, ‘O lumme, there’s plenty o’ young chaps about yet.’ But you can’t put old heads on young shoulders, can you?” Awaking, apparently, to the fact that his tongue had been running away with him, the old fellow added apologetically— “I’m afraid we’ve kept you a bit, but once we get fairly started there’s no telling when we are going to stop. “Good night. Don’t forget the ‘oppin’.” CHAPTER IV