"For better or worser, richer or poorer, up an' down, in an' out, chassez right and left! Aha-ha-ha! Aha-ha-ha! But, Seffy,"--and the happy father turned to the happy son and hugged him, "don't you efer forgit that she's a feather-head and got a bright red temper like her daddy! And they both work mighty bad together sometimes. When you get her at the right place onct--well, nail her down--hand and feet--so's she can't git away. When she gits mad her little brain evaporates, and if she had a knife she'd go round stabbing her best friends--that's the only sing that safes her--yas, and us!--no knife. If she had a knife it would be funerals following her all the time." II They advanced together now, Seffy's father whistling some tune that was never heard before on earth, and, with his arm in that of his son, they watched Sally bounding away. Once more, as she leaped a fence, she looked laughingly back. The old man whistled wildly out of tune. Seffy waved a hand! "Now you shouting, Seffy! Shout ag'in!" "I didn't say a word!" "Well--it ain't too late! Go on!" Now Seffy understood and laughed with his father. "Nice gal, Sef--Seffy!" "Yes!" admitted Seffy with reserve. "Healthy." Seffy agreed to this, also. "No doctor-bills!" his father amplified. Seffy said nothing. "Entire orphen." "She's got a granny!" "Yas," chuckled the old man at the way his son was drifting into the situation--thinking about granny!--"but Sally owns _the farm_!" "Uhu!" said Seffy, whatever that might mean. "And Sally's the boss!" Silence. "And granny won't object to any one Sally marries, anyhow--she dassent! She'd git licked!" "Who said anything about marrying?" Seffy was speciously savage now--as any successful wooer might be. "Nobody but me, sank you!" said the old man with equally specious meekness. "Look how she ken jump a six-rail fence. Like a three-year filly! She's a nice gal, Seffy--and the farms j'ine together--her pasture-field and our corn-field. And she's kissing her hand backwards! At me or you, Seffy?" Seffy said he didn't know. And he did not return the kiss--though he yearned to. "Well, I bet a dollar that the first initial of his last name is Sephenijah P. Baumgartner, _Junior_." "Well!" said Seffy with a great flourish, "I'm going to set up with her to-night." "Oach--git out, Sef!"--though he knew it. "You'll see." "No, I won't," said his father. "I wouldn't be so durn mean. Nossir!" Seffy grinned at this subtle foolery, and his courage continued to grow. "I'm going to wear my high hat!" he announced, with his nose quite in the air. "No, Sef!" said the old man with a wonderful inflection, facing him about that he might look into his determined face. For it must be explained that the stovepipe hat, in that day and that country, was dedicated only to the most momentous social occasions and that, consequently, gentlemen wore it to go courting. "Yes!" declared Seffy again.