It was him that suggested it, not me, and I guess he repented himself before we had played one game. But he was too stubborn to give up and set there while I beat him game after game and the worst part of it was that a crowd of folks had got in the habit of watching me play and there they all was, looking on, and finally they seen what a fool Frank was making of himself, and they began to chafe him and pass remarks. Like one of them said: “Who ever told you you was a checker player!” And: “You might maybe be good for tiddle-de-winks, but not checkers!” I almost felt like letting him beat me a couple games. But the crowd would of knowed it was a put up job. Well, the women folks joined us in the Park and I wasn’t going to mention our little game, but Hartsell told about it himself and admitted he wasn’t no match for me. “Well,” said Mrs. Hartsell, “checkers ain’t much of a game anyway, is it?” She said: “It’s more of a children’s game, ain’t it? At least, I know my boy’s children used to play it a good deal.” “Yes, ma’am,” I said. “It’s a children’s game the way your husband plays it, too.” Mother wanted to smooth things over, so she said: “Maybe they’s other games where Frank can beat you.” “Yes,” said Mrs. Hartsell, “and I bet he could beat you pitching horse-shoes.” “Well,” I said, “I would give him a chance to try, only I ain’t pitched a shoe in over sixteen years.” “Well,” said Hartsell, “I ain’t played checkers in twenty years.” “You ain’t never played it,” I said. “Anyway,” says Frank, “Lucy and I is your master at five hundred.” Well, I could of told him why that was, but had decency enough to hold my tongue. It had got so now that he wanted to play cards every night and when I or Mother wanted to go to a movie, why one of us would have to pretend we had a headache and then trust to goodness that they wouldn’t see us sneak into the theater. I don’t mind playing cards when my partner keeps their mind on the game, but you take a woman like Hartsell’s wife and how can they play cards when they have got to stop every couple seconds and brag about their son in Grand Rapids? Well, the New York-New Jersey Society announced that they was going to give a social evening too and I said to Mother, I said: “Well, that is one evening when we will have an excuse not to play five hundred.” “Yes,” she said, “but we will have to ask Frank and his wife to go to the social with us as they asked us to go to the Michigan social.” “Well,” I said, “I had rather stay home than drag that chatterbox everywheres we go.” So Mother said: “You are getting too cranky. Maybe she does talk a little too much but she is good hearted. And Frank is always good company.” So I said: “I suppose if he is such good company you wished you had of married him.” Mother laughed and said I sounded like I was jealous. Jealous of a cow doctor!