"Good night, Phineas," called out another voice merrily. "Good night," responded Striker, with a dubious shake of his head. He returned to the fireplace. "Women are funny things," said he, dragging up another chair. "'Specially about boots. I go out 'long about sun-up an' work like a dog all day, an' then when I come in to supper what happens? First thing my wife does is to look at my boots. Then she tells me to go out an' scrape the mud off'm 'em. Then she looks up at my face to see if it's me. Sometimes I get so doggoned mad I wish it wasn't me, so's I could turn out to be the preacher er somebody like that an' learn her to be keerful who she's talkin' to. Supposin' I do track a little mud into her kitchen? It's OUR mud, ain't it? 'Tain't as if it was somebody else's land I'm bringin' into her kitchen. Between us we own every danged bit of land from here to the Middleton dirt-road an' it ain't my fault if it happens to be mud once in awhile. You'd think, the way she acts, I'd been out stealin' somebody else's mud just for the sake of bringin' it into her kitchen. "An' what makes me madder'n anything else is the way she scolds them pore dogs when they come in with a little mud. As if a dog understood he had to scrape his feet off an' wash his paws an' everything 'fore he c'n step inside his master's cabin. Now you take cats, they're as smart as all get out. They're jist like women. Allus thinkin' about their pussonal appearance. Ever notice a cat walk across a muddy strip o' ground? Why, you'd think they was walkin' on a red hot stove, the way they step. I've seen a cat go fifty rods out of her way to get around a mud-puddle. I recollect seein' ole Maje,--he's our principal tom-cat,--seein' him creepin' along a rail fence nearly half a mile from the house so's he wouldn't have to cross a stretch o' wet ground jist outside the kitchen door. Now, a dog would have splashed right through it an' took the consequences. But ole Maje--NO, SIR! He goes miles out'n his way an' then when he gits home he sets down on the doorstep an' licks his feet fer half an hour er so before he begins to meow so's Eliza'll open the door an' let him in.