"Yes," he began quietly, when it had subsided, "I'm about to put me up a house--I like to be a-buildin'--a man might as well improve his property. There's one gal that wants me mighty bad, and has wanted me for a long while; sometimes I'm scared she'll get me. Reckon I might as well be ready." [10] "Ye hear that, Callisty?" crowed little Rilly Trigg. "Ye hear that! Have ye told him adzackly the kind of house ye want? I 'low ye ort." "Put a little yellow side o' that red," advised Callista composedly, busying herself wholly with the hat Rilly was trimming. "There--don't you think that looks better?" Rilly made a face at Fuson and Cleaverage, and laughed. "No need to ask her which nor whether," said Lance nonchalantly. "Any place I am is bound to suit Callista. I intend that my house shall be the best in the Turkey Tracks; but if it wasn't she'd never find it out, long as _I_ was there." Again there was a chorus of appreciative laughter. "How's that, Callista--is it so for a fact?" inquired Fuson, eager to see the game go on. Callista opened her beautiful eyes wide, and smiled with lazy scorn. "Truly, I'm suited with whatever Lance Cleaverage builds, and wherever and whenever he builds. Let it be what it may, it's nothing to me." "You Rilly!" called a shrill feminine voice from the direction of the church. "Bring the basket." "Help me with it, Buck," said Aurilla, and the two started down the slope together. "Now," suggested Lance, with an affectation of reluctance, "if the rest of you-all don't mind giving us the place here, I reckon Callista's got [11] a heap that she wants to say to me, and she's ashamed to speak out before folks." The mad project of a Sunday dance, which nobody but Ola Derf had entertained for a moment, was thus tacitly dropped. There was a general snickering at Lance's impudent assumption. Again Callista seemed too placidly contemptuous to care to make denial. Boys got up from their lounging positions on the grass, girls shook out their skirts, and two and two the young folks began to straggle toward the gray little church. "You're a mighty accommodatin' somebody," observed Lance, dropping lightly on the grass at Callista's feet. "I have been told by some that you'd make a contentious wife; but looks to me like you're settin' out to be powerful easy goin'. Ain't got a word to say about how many rooms in the house, nor whar the shelves is to be, nor nothin'--eh?" Reckless of time or place he reached up, put a finger under her chin, and turned her face toward him, puckering his lips meditatively as though he meant to kiss her--or to whistle. He got a swift, stinging slap for his pains, and Callista faced around on the rock where she sat to put herself as far from him as might be.