It was Saturday afternoon in the bunk-house and the other boys had cleared for town. Howard looks up from shavin’ and says, “Well, Lefty! How come you ain’t with the widder? Figured you’d be hitched by now?” Ol’ Lefty looked like someone just shot his dog.

“Howdy, fellers. Me and the widder won’t be standin’ in the traces, after all.”

“Hell, Lefty,” says I, “she seemed to think you was just ‘bout the boss, and you said she could cook like anything.”

“Well, that’s so, fellers, but things got a mite tangled. She starts off sayin’ I had a fine line of talk, ‘count of my bringin’ po’try an’ flars an’all. Prit’ soon, I’d eat a meal and then here come the chores. And there warn’t no ‘please’ to it, neither. More like, ‘you’ll want to git to it, ‘afore it gits dark!' A loose shingle, a busted winder, dang!”

“What ‘bout now?” says Howard.

“Ah, she took up with Elmer Bass, from the gen’ral store. Be getting’ nails an’ shingles free now, I reckon.”

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