One morning Nannie was out in the garden, not at work as she should have been (she left all that to Steve), but walking around in a sort of lordly way, after the fashion of many idlers in this world who without scruple appropriate the results of industry.

She had often noted an old codger whose place backed up on hers, but had never held any converse with him. This morning, however, he seemed inclined to break the ice, as it were, for as she strutted about he leaned on the fence and said cheerily:

“Good-morning, neighbor.”

Nannie gave one glance at his old broad-brimmed straw hat and rusty overalls, and then said with a certain winning sauciness all her own:

“Good-morning, old Hayseed.”

The man laughed. He had a rotund, jovial countenance, which even his smoked glasses could not plunge into gloom. His every feature had an upward turn, and there was something strong and good about the face that made one feel that his heart also curved upward.

“So ye're gard'nin', be yer?” he remarked by way of introduction.

“No, I ain't,” said Nannie curtly. “Steve gardens, and you know it. You've seen him bent like a bow over these beds ever since we came here.”

“Yes, that's so.”

“And I've held myself as straight as an arrow.”

“Now thet's so, too,” and the old man laughed. “Ye're cute, yer air.”

“I can see right ahead of me. I don't wear smoked glasses,” said Nannie with a pretty little grimace.

“There's a deal goes on ahind smoked glasses sometimes,” said the old fellow with a laugh.

“How do you keep house?” asked Nannie with an abrupt change of subject. “You haven't any wife or daughter.”

“I don't keep it; jest trust it. Don't turn no key nor nothin' on it, an' I ain't never knowed it to stray outside ther yard. Ther's a heap in hevin' faith in things.”

Nannie's face grew thoughtful.

“Yer kin 'most b'lieve a man inter bein' honest, an' I reckon it acts ther same on wimmin, though they be a leetle different.”

Nannie looked up from under her curls with a glance half inquiring, half defiant.

“When wimmin's young they be like a colt—it's hard ter keep 'em stiddy. When they git older they be somethin' like a mule—it's hard ter start 'em up now an' agin.”

“I guess men are the same. They belong to the same stock—all the world's akin, you know,” said Nannie mischievously.

“All the world's akin, eh?” said the old man slowly, turning this thought over in his mind. “Well, now, mebbe thet's so, but if it is ther's a deal of difference atween ther cousins.”

Again Nannie's face grew thoughtful. Then she raised her eyes and pointed, with a little laugh, to a passer-by.

“There goes one kind of a cousin, I suppose.”

“He's a coon,” said the old man. “Him an' his mother, they live off yonder nigh ther swamp. They used ter own this 'ere place ye're on, an' then it passed ter ther datter, an' then her husban' bought it. She's in ther insane asylum now, an' these rel'tives claim she ain't crazy, but thet she was put in by ther malice of her husban'. An' they claim he's got ther place wrongful, an' hadn't a right ter sell ter you folks.”

“That's why they're bothering us so?”

“Thet's why,” said old Hayseed.

“Well, they'll find we're two many for them.”

Then with a sudden burst of laughter she exclaimed:

“Oh, I'm going to egg Steve on to a fight! Wouldn't it be fun! I wonder if Steve could fight!”

“Reckon he could,” said the old man with a gleam in his eye that seemed to pierce the darkness of his glasses. “He don't look it exact an' his manners don't promise it, but ther may be fight in him somewhere. Ther be men, yer know, can't talk even about ther weather without shakin' a fist in yer face. He ain't thet kind.”

“No. If he were he would have murdered Sarah Maria long ago.”

“He would thet, fer a fact. Then ther's others thet air so afeard—so skeart thet a two-year-old bootblack or ther shadder of publick derishion could put 'em ter flight. Be thet his kind?”

“I guess not!” blazed Nannie. “Steve's afraid of nothing, living or dead.”

“No, he ain't afeard. I kin see thet; but he's peaceable.”

Just at this moment Nannie glanced down the sloping sides of the ravine and saw Hilda Bretherton panting her way up toward the house. Now, these two had not met since Hilda married and started off on her wedding trip to France, shortly before Nannie became engaged. True to the usual direction of her popularity, Hilda had married a small man, beside whom she looked the good-natured giantess she indeed was, but he was enormously rich, and in her particular set she was accounted one of fortune's favorites.

Since casting her lot in the country Nannie had been into town but little. For society as she had known it she cared nothing. Then, too, marriage had entered the magic circle of the Young Woman's Club and changed its membership, so that Nannie felt herself an alien. She was not consciously lonely in the country, but yet there was something so significant in the glad cry she uttered when she caught sight of Hilda, and the unusual warmth of her greeting, that old Hayseed looked on from his side of the fence with a meditative air.

“The colt's a-yearnin' fer somethin' without knowin' it,” he said to himself as Nannie dragged Hilda into the house.

“I ought not to sit down,” Hilda panted. “Oh, dear! Let me get my breath! Do you see how awfully fat I am? and my husband don't weigh but a hundred and twenty—think of that! A sparrow for a protector! If ever I wanted to get behind him to escape a mouse or anything, what should I do?”

“Where is he?” asked Nannie.

“What—the mouse?” screamed Hilda.

“No,” said Nannie, “the husband;” and then the two fell a-laughing in the old foolish way.

“Husband! Oh, I thought you'd have something of that kind around, and one would be enough for to-day.”

“No, really! Where is he?”

“Over on the other side of the ravine. You see, we missed the road and got entangled in the forest. Ye gods! how literally you've taken to the woods, Nannie! Well, DeLancy didn't feel he was equal to a climb, so I came alone, presumably to find the road, but I couldn't go on without seeing you, so I've stolen a visit.”

“You'd better!” said Nannie. “If ever you pass me by I'll haunt you!”

“I know that. I always was afraid of you. I always said you were a little——”

“Sh-h!” said Nannie, imitating Prudence Shaftsbury's air and manner.

“Dear old Prue!” said Hilda. “I saw her the other day. I believe she's really happy. She don't say much, but she looks it. She's awfully swell, too. Why, you hear Mrs. Ralph Porter on all sides. She leads everything. That girl has more tact and diplomacy than any one I ever saw. Awfully nice girl, too. Here I am, always putting my foot in it. DeLancy says I fling a rope around my neck so surely as I open my mouth, and with each succeeding word I give it a jerk. Oh, dear me! I ought to be going. He'll be wild! Why, you don't look any too well. What's the matter with you, Nan? Aren't you happy, child?”

“Yes. Mind your business!” said Nannie in the old defiant way.

“Bless me! bless me! You haven't changed a mite! I thought marriage would improve you. Oh, do you know Evelyn Rogers was married the other day?”

“No,” said Nannie with quickened interest.

“Yes—not at her home. She was visiting her aunt in New York, and there she married her villainous-looking professor, and would you believe it? I heard they went right off to the slums on a wedding trip, taking a thief, and an anarchist, and a murderer with them, as chaperons, I suppose. Oh, I ought to be going!”

“To the slums?” asked Nannie.

“No, no. I ought to get out of here. DeLancy is insane by this time, I know! I must run!”

“Hilda, you sit still and cool off! You've just been in a stew ever since you came.”

“I'm in one all the time. Do you remember what some of you girls said of me at that first meeting of the club—I'd be kept in a continual stew? Never were truer words spoken. Oh!” and she groaned loudly.

“Why don't you get done—with it?” asked Nannie.

“I can't,” said Hilda coolly. “I'm in for it now and must go on to the bitter end. It's too late to chew the cud of reflection.”

“Don't count on the end,” laughed Nannie, looking at her friend's rotund figure. “There's no end to you, Hilda. You're an all-round woman.”

“Indeed I am! If you could only see the number of offices I fill. I'm nurse, doctor, valet, messenger, and on cross days general vent for the humors.”

“Is he really ill?”

“Oh, I don't know. He has dyspepsia. I guess he don't feel any too well, and nothing pleases him. He took a notion that a sea voyage would cure him, and it didn't. He snarled and snapped all the way, and oh, I was so sick—ugh! and I had to drag myself around after him. Then next he tried the German baths. He's tried everything, and now—oh, now,” she continued with a groan, putting her handkerchief to her face, “he says that society is injurious to him. And what do you suppose he has done?” she asked, raising her voice and peering from above the handkerchief which she had pressed to her face. “He's rented a lonely cabin in the Adirondacks for a year—a year! and there I'm to live! Imagine me, my dear! I shall grow so rusty that when I return to civilization I shall only be able to hang on the back door and creak while others are talking. Mercy upon us! there's DeLancy! He'll find me visiting! I'll never hear the last of this as long as I live! Where can I go? What can I get under? Oh, there's nothing big enough in all the world to cover me! Woe is me! I must always remain in the open!”

“Lie down there,” said Nannie authoritatively. “I'll cover you.”

“You!” screamed Hilda. “You! Oh, you elf! you brownie! you mite—you widow's mite! What could you cover?”

“Lie down! Be quick! The enemy approaches!” cried Nannie, convulsed with laughter.

Hilda gave one glance from out the window and then fell flat on the divan.

“I am lost!” she groaned.

“I'll defend you,” said Nannie bravely.

“You! Oh, you atom! you molecule! you microbe! What can you do?”

“Be quiet. You are dead—do you hear? You're dead—dead as a doornail; dead as a mummy—the mummy that walked the streets of Thebes when Moses was a young man.”

“Nannie!”

But Nannie did not hear, for she was running to meet the enemy, a bit of a man who looked like a woodland sprite as he walked along the edge of the ravine. In contrast with the big figure that lay prone upon the divan, his size was really ridiculous. Had his pettiness been merely external, that would not have mattered. Small men have been known to tower as giants before us. Luther was called the little monk, and the Corsican who altered the world's map was of still smaller proportions.

This little creature, however, was the reverse of Julia Ward Howe's youthful daughter, who announced to an offending visitor that she was “big inside,” inasmuch as he was made on a small pattern, within as well as without.

His petty face was all puckered up when Nannie encountered him, and his rasping voice was at its most irritating pitch.

The moment he was within hailing distance he began his complaint, heedless even of the courtesy of a greeting. He declared he was too exhausted to take another step; that he had lost his wife, and he asked if Nannie had seen her.

“Oh, Mr. Seymour! Hilda—Hilda—is—at my house—dead.”

“Dead!” he fairly screamed.

“No, dying.”

He started toward the house with the speed of the wind, but Nannie stopped him.

“Don't!” she exclaimed. “Wait! Oh, I'm so excited I'm all mixed up! She's had an awful spell, but she's better now; but you mustn't startle her. Something's the matter with her heart. It was beating like a sledge-hammer—an awful spell.”

“Oh, if she dies, who'll take care of me? What shall I do?”

And he wrung his weak little hands.

“She won't die, I guess, if we take good care of her. Oh, it's awful to have anything of this kind happen when you're out in the country miles from a doctor.”

“And I have been crazy enough to rent a cottage in the Adirondacks!”

Nannie looked at him solemnly and said:

“Oh!”

“I'll let it stand idle! Hilda might die up there! I never thought of such a thing, she looks so well. And I might be taken worse,” he gasped as one who suddenly realized a still more awful possibility. “It would never do for us to go up there.”

Nannie looked still more solemn and said:

“Oh, no.”

By this time they had reached the house, and Mr. Seymour was tiptoeing about, getting out one remedy after another for his prostrate wife, who feebly assured him she was better. By the time he had given her smelling salts, a little port, a whiff of ammonia, some soda and water, a smell of camphor, and had bathed her forehead in Florida water, alcohol, witch-hazel, and rubbed it with camphor ice and a menthol pencil, the case began to look really serious, and Hilda was honestly ill.

She lay on the divan, perspiring and uncomfortable, uneasy in conscience and timorous as to results, until near evening, when her husband, with many a misgiving, took her away in a carriage—not to the Adirondacks.

Nannie watched until they were out of sight, and when she turned she saw Steve coming, and in her swift way contrasted him with DeLancy Seymour.

That evening after dinner, without a word of explanation to her husband, Nannie walked off to the house of her cousin, Mr. Misfit. Now, Steve was by this time somewhat accustomed to her eccentric ways and seldom questioned them, nor did he realize that they were eccentric. He had grown up knowing very little of women and regarding them as a peculiar class, which no doubt they are. Indeed, his rural experiences, not only with his wife, but also with the hens and with Sarah Maria, had tended toward the inclusion of the entire sex under the head incomprehensible, and he was inclined to treat them like difficult words, which we point at from a distance without attempting to grapple.

He might have maintained this let-alone attitude indefinitely but for a growing sense of the total depravity of vegetable sins and a realization of his miserable insufficiency as a combatant. Naturally, in looking about him for assistance he thought of her who should be his help-meet, and mentally began to question her continual absence from home. This evening he was feeling a little more tired than usual, and an ill-selected luncheon in town had depressed him. When he found that the weeds were likely to overpower him he arose and decided that Nannie must be called upon. She was not at home, but he could fetch her. To be sure that might not be easy, but Steve was now fully roused. Prolonged warfare had developed in his nature a trace of pugilism hitherto unsuspected by his nearest friend. Every man has more or less of the warrior within him. It may be asleep, but it is there, and Steve was no exception.

A short walk brought him to the house of Nannie's cousin, and there he found the lady for whom he was seeking.

“Are you going home now, Nannie?” he asked in his usual gentle way.

Nannie looked into his face and saw something new, and it roused her opposition.

“No,” she said.

Now, Steve had read Ian Maclaren's story of the wretched beadle who, newly inflated, but not profited, by his lonely wedding journey to a Presbyterian synod, resolved to experiment in the exercise of authority upon his bride. But, alas! he had read to his destruction. He remembered with what majesty the beadle said:

“Rebecca, close the door.”

But he did not remember what Rebecca did, and hence had no better sense than to say this evening, with a quiet firmness new to his domestic use:

“I should like to have you go home now, Nannie. There are matters that need your attention.”

Nannie rose at once and walked home without a word, Steve accompanying her. By the time they got there a young moon was sinking in the west, and with the curiosity common to extreme youth it strained its eyes to see through the trees what Nannie would do.

“The radishes and lettuce need weeding,” said Steve when they reached the garden, and Nannie walked directly to these beds and went to work, while Steve occupied himself at a little distance.

Before long old Hayseed came up and leaned upon the fence.

“Well, neighbor,” he said, “what are ye doin' by moonlight?”

Nannie stood erect and looked at him. Her black eyes fairly scintillated and her lips were compressed. All around her were scattered the uprooted weeds, and the lettuce and radishes lay with them.

“What crop air ye raisin' now?” he asked.

“I'm raising Cain!” she said.