If I had have knew that Jones had called off from you, I declare on my word and honor, S'phrony, I'd never went nigh there." "Suppose you had thought that Jones jilted me, what would you have done then?" "I'd 'a' come at you jes the same, S'phrony, jes the same." "Then I say, bless your heart, and Mr. Downs's too." "I'm glad to hear it." single continental whether it's cool or hot. I ought n't to brought in you and Uncle Billy, and if you say so, the first time I ketch Jones Kindrick out of his house, I'll whirl in on him and maul some of his big languages out of him. S'phrony, please take back what you said about the weather, won't you?" She looked at him affectionately, and said: "My dear Sim, I 'm not afraid that you won't assert your manhood. I take back all I that hurt you." He looked at her wistfully, and said not an- said about the weather, and everything else other word. "Well?" at length she inquired. "I-I got no more to say, but, soon as Jones were off the track for good, Uncle Billy and me we made up our minds for me to court you." 66 Well, why don't you ?” "Ain't I been a-tryin' to do it, S'phrony, ever sence we left the meetin'-house? "Oh! now I think I understand you. What do you want me to say?" "I want you to say yes, and then, waitin' like I been a-doin', I don't want you to put it off too fur." "Well, sir, I'll tell you now plain, Sim Newsome, that there is n't a man living that I would get married to inside of two months, and you need n't to ask me." "Let me see; that would fetch it to middle of December. That 'll suit me, S'phrony. It'll come in nice for Christmas." "Laws help my heart, Sim! You talk like I was a piece of pound-cake, or a tumbler of sillibub." "No comparison to them, S'phrony; not to a whole oven full o' pound-cake, nor a whole stand o' sillibub." "Hush! And now let me tell you one thing, my young man. If I am to marry you, you have got to quit letting Jones Kindrick top you in every everlasting thing. I have been mad many a time to see how he has run over you, when you were worth ten times as much. Do you hear me?" "I hear every word you say, S'phrony. Betwix' me and you and Uncle Billy Downs, I know Jones can be made to- to shinny on his own side." "No, sir; I shall have nothing to do with it; and your uncle Billy Downs, as you call him, shall have nothing to do with it. If you can't keep yourself on a level with Jones Kindrick, I'll I think we'd just as well drop it, and go to talking about something else. It's right cool to-day, don't you think so, for the middle of October?" "S'phrony, please don't go to drappin' all my feelin's down on the very ground, talkin' about the weather! I hain't been a-studyin' about the weather, nor thinkin' nor keerin' one VOL. XLIV.- 102. "I'm glad to hear it. I hain't never been afraid of Jones. It 's his big languages which I never learnt that has made me keep out of his way. Jones know I can out-farm him, outrun him, fling him down, and can whip him, if it come to that; and now since I find you don't like my givin' up to him, which ma and Uncle Billy has always ruther scolded me for doin', he better keep some of his languages to himself, for me." "There'll be no need of any fussing. Jones will see that hereafter you intend to be your own man, and that will be all that is needed. "I'm glad to hear it." "Is that all you have to say? If it had been Jones, he would have used some of his biggest words in saying what sort of wife I 'd make." "Confound Jones!" v. It is a goodly sight, the influence of a good woman on a husband who needs it. Fortified by the support of S'phrony, Sim felt, if in some respects not yet the full equal of Jones, at least sufficient to all usual responsibilities. It delighted Mr. Downs to see him lift up his head among men, even in the presence of Jones, and not much less when the Newsome fence was extended in order to take in such a beautiful slice of the Miller land. In the next year Sim's mother died, after which Mr. Downs, his embarrassment being now all gone, visited freely at the house, and contributed his part to Sim's development into a big, solid, respectable farmer. When the novelty with Jones was about over, he seemed to feel somewhat the constraint of being confined in his attentions to just one wife, especially when Alley showed herself to be a person who would not be willing to submit to any very great amount of foolishness. Her father's indebtedness was more than had been suspected, and the dowry that had come along with her was much less than what Jones had counted upon. Alley made up, at least she tried to make up, for this deficit by industry and selfassertion, which, if he only had known it, were the very things that, for his sake, were 1 for her to have. It is curious how a man who long has towered among men can be let down by one woman, not oversized or aggressive, only firm and ladylike. His lofty gait, exuberant gaiety, and overflowing verbosity declined in the constant presence of a wife who estimated him at his comparative conjugal value, and not much more. Alley and S'phrony were very friendly, ostensibly affectionate. Yet it cut Alley, who was more ambitious, to suspect that S'phrony felt that she had the better husband; for not until after her marriage had she learned that it was not for the want of trying that Jones had not gotten S'phrony; then she remembered, with a sting of more than one kind, how lightly, before their marriage, he had spoken of Sim, whom she now saw was regarded by everybody except Jones as the latter's superior. Her very loyalty imparted to these stings a sharper painfulness. Stimulated by her influence, Jones became much more energetic in business, and, like all such persons, hoped to recover his lost ascendancy. At the death of his mother, intestate, a year afterward, he persuaded his sister Maria to forego a property division, as they were to continue to live together. Upon this arrangement Mr. Downs expressed his opinions, but only to Sim. "It ain't people's own fau't when they hain't the beautiful face of other people, Simyul. I know that from expe'unce, but that ain't no reason for them to be runned over, and they'd 'a' been a fuss if any o' my people had wanted to keep me out o' my sheer o' my father's prop'ty because I were n't their equil in pooty and sizeable. As for Jones, he 's bound to be above somebody. He have lit off o' you, and he can't git the up-hand o' his wife, and now he have lit on to Miss M'ria. He hain't got what he expected to git by Alley, and now I suppose he think he'll make it up out of Miss M'ria." Miss Maria was as good as she was plain. She had great respect for her sister-in-law, but she loved best S'phrony, with whom she sometimes held chats more or less confidential. "Brother thought it was n't worth while to have a division, as we were all together, and I did n't care about it, as I never expect to go away from there. Alley said not one word about it, no way; for she's a good, honor'ble woman, Alley is, but it cut her sometimes, I suspicion, that brother don't make and manage equil to cousin Sim. She treats me just like her own sister, which as for brother, he hain't always done; that is, not to that extent. He know I never expect to change my condition, and so I suppose he think it ain't worth while. And then, you know, the little baby 's named Maria, which of course it's after ma, although the same name as me, and it 's a' sweet a little thing as it can be, and it take to me a'most the same as it take to Alley, and so on the whole I told brother, at least for the present, and till I said different, to let things stay as they are." Things went on with reasonable smoothness for two years longer, at the end of which, after the birth of her second child, S'phrony died. It was very hard on poor Sim, who, for all he thought about it, and grieved about it, and did everything about it that is usually done in such painful emergencies, was not able to see how, if ever, the loss was to be repaired. VI. In this while everything about Mr. Downs had grown more dry, not rapidly, but perceptibly. No; there was one exception-his love for Sim. "Been my own daughter," he said often, as tears were in his eyes, "I would n't 'a' felt more miser❜ble, special for poor Simyul. The good Lord always know what 's for the best; but sech as that never struck me that way. I no doubt S'phrony have gone to mansions in the sky, for she was as good as they ever make 'em; but what poor Simyul is to do, I has yit to see." For several months he watched and tended him closely; he waited such time as was respectful to S'phrony's memory, and then decided that in a manner as delicate as possible he would put forth a feeler. Simyul, M'ria Kindrick may n't be as handsome as some, nor she may n't be quite as young; but that nor them don' hender her from bein' a oncommon fine female, and I have been stud'in' on it, and my mind have arriv at the conclusion that M'ria Kindrick would make the best sort of a companion to them that has lost who they oncet had, and is left with two little motherless children." Sim shuddered slightly; then in his heart he thanked Mr. Downs, whose motives he knew to be all kindness, for only hinting his thoughts, instead of blurting them out, as is sometimes done by people who seem to have not a particle of delicacy. He looked at his children, one waddling about on the piazza, the other in the nurse's arms, and said : "Uncle Billy, it appears like to me that since S'phrony's been gone I feel like I don't keer one blessed thing—that is, for myself." "I know egzact how you feel, Simyul, though I ain't never been in them conditions, a-owin', I suppose, to my not a never havin' a wife to lose o' no sort. But if it was me, I should have my eye on them childern, a-knowin' no man person can always see which sech as them, innercent if they be, is obleeged to have." "The good Lord know how sorry I am for 'em," and Sim looked at them with much vitualest importance to him as the man of the generosity. house." "Of course you are, a-bein' they 're your own childern; but a young man like you, he ought to be sorry for hisself too." Then Sim candidly admitted that he was. "I'm thankful for that much," said Mr. Downs, heartily, "and if it was me, I should try my level best to requiperate, like the doctor say; I should try to polish myself up in all mod'rate ways, and let people see that I had n't give up, not by a long shot; and to save my life, I can't keep out of my head, if Jones was to divide with Miss M'ria, which, bein' his own dear sister, he's bound to do, and this side o' the plantation was to fall to her, how compack every thing would be, provided people had the mind to make it so by jindin' and nunitin' o' theirselves and it and them." After several talks on this line, Sim lifted up his head as well as he could. It was not strange that he should drop in at the Kindricks' occasionally, and listen thankfully to what consolation the family offered. After the first outpour, Jones did little in that way; but Alley, and especially Miss Maria, were earnestly sympathetic and kind. Sim soon began to come there quite often, so often that Jones considered it necessary to say something about it. One morning at the breakfast-table he looked up from his plate and said: M'ria, Sim Newsome comes here oftener than I can see fit to take any stock in his travelings and in his visits.” At that moment both ladies had their coffeecups in their hands, Miss Maria's touching her lips, and Alley's on its way. These were set down promptly, Miss Maria's so abruptly that some of its contents splashed into the saucer. She looked straight at Jones for a second or so, then rose, and left the room. Contrariwise with Alley. Her face reddened with generous shame, and she said: "I have heard you make many imprudent, not to say foolish and shameless, speeches, but never one equal to that." Her disgust was so manifest that he avoided the look which she gave him, and said sullenly: "I jest wanted to inform M'ria that Sim Newsome was not fooling nor hidwinking me, sneaking over here with his moanin' talks and conversations." "Mr. Newsome has not been coming here in any such way, Mr. Kindrick, and if he has been coming here at all with the notion which you showed Maria that you believe, I don't see, for my life, how you could study up a better way to drive her to accept him at the first offer he makes to her." "My Lord! for a gentleman's own wife to converse in that way, and on a subject of the "Gentleman! Man of the house! Pshaw!" Then she rose also, and left him to himself. Going to Maria's chamber, she said: 66 Maria, do please try not to mind Mr. Kindrick. I am deeply mortified; but I hope you understand your brother well enough to not let his reckless, insulting words distress you too much." "Law, my dear child! I left the table to keep from seeing the trouble that I knew such outrageous words would give you. Cousin Sim, I don't suppose, has been thinking about me as brother hinted. But brother ought to know that if cousin Sim was foolish enough to want me, the way to make me take him would be to talk about him in that way." "Let us kiss, and say no more about it." And so they did. In a case of this sort, which inevitably must grow worse if it does not grow better, and that soon, there was one of two things for a man like Jones Kindrick to do. One was to amend himself. But people like him cannot learn to yield entirely a supremacy after it has been admitted so long. When his control over Sim had ceased, he thought to transfer it to Alley. Failing here, except so far as a loyal wife will always submit to any sort of husband, he now sought to domineer over his patient sister, and we have seen what was likely to come of that. Jones, although not an old man, was too old to amend. Perhaps he had so decided in his mind. Then, not so intending, however, he took the other alternative. To make short an unpleasant recital, he went into a decline, and when he foresaw that he was not to retrace his steps, he asked Sim, as a cousin and a friend, to be as liberal as he could with Alley and the baby when division of his mother's estate should be had between them and Maria. And Sim promised solemnly that whatever influence he should have in that matter should be exerted on the line of the wishes just declared. Jones thanked him and the rest for all that they had done and promised, and then went his way. "On the whole," said Mr. Downs, kindly, "it were as honor'ble thing as Jones could do, poor feller." VII. "No, Simyul," said Mr. Downs, feeling the sweetness which we all have when in forgiving mood, "they ain't a thing I has to say ag'inst poor Jones. He were a fine young man, if he have only knowed how to act different." A generous man, Sim felt becoming regrets. He was touched by the appeal in behalf of A and her baby, and he resolved to befriend t to the degree comporting with other claims. He had not intimated to Miss Maria that if she should choose, she might have the place left vacant by S'phrony. Once or twice, constantly stimulated by Mr. Downs and the needs of his children, he had not been very far from doing it. But, somehow, S'phrony's image or lack of ardent desire had hindered. When Jones had gotten out of everybody's way, Sim gradually began to ask himself if he were quite as sorry as he used to be; for somehow, when he was at the Kindricks', he had somewhat of a notion that Jones, wherever he was (and he sincerely hoped it was a good place), had his eye upon him. Alley behaved with entire decorum, exhibiting neither too much nor too little of unavailing sorrow. Both ladies accepted thankfully his counsels about the management of their business. Seeing how much these were needed in the comparatively run-down condition in which things had been left, he went over often, because, business man that he was, he knew it to be necessary. This seems a fitting place to mention the somewhat changed relations of Sim and Mr. Downs toward each other. Latterly their confidential chattings had been getting into rather dwindling condition. Perhaps neither did so deliberately; but at all events they seemed to have decided simultaneously that the future, better than they, would know how to take care of itself. Mr. Downs's land joined both properties. One day it occurred to him that the DownsKindrick line of fence, being rather crumbling, ought to be reset. While walking alongside he discovered an ancient mark which showed that the fence had been put by mistake on the hither side of his line. Knowing that right was nothing but right, he resolved to ride over and have a friendly talk upon the subject with one or both of the Kindrick ladies. But he did not do so immediately after making the discovery. No; he first went to town and purchased some very nice cloth and other materials, had everything cut out by the tailor, and afterward,-on that same day, bless you,- rode away up to Miss Faithy Wimpy, whom he, as well as everybody else, knew to be the best maker-up in that whole region. When all was finished and brought back, it was then that he went to the Kindricks'. Yet he did not travel by the public road, which would have taken him by the Newsome place. He rode over his own ground until reaching the fence aforementioned. This he laid down, and, after passing over, traveled on quietly and thoughtfully. The ladies were sitting on the piazza, each moderately busy at some sort of needlework, when they heard from behind the house the opening and shutting of a gate that led into the lower portion of the plantation. "Wonder who can be there at that gate," said Miss Maria, suspending her work; "the hands ain't anywhere in that part of the plantation." Rising, she walked to the end of the piazza, and, looking back, said: "Alley, do come here. It 's Mr. Downs's horse, I think, but who in this world it is that 's on him, I can't tell." The horseman came on alongside the garden and the yard. Proceeding thence to one of the trees near the gate, he alighted, hitched his beast, and, opening the gate, advanced modestly up the walk. Even then Miss Maria did n't dream who it was. "Why, Maria," said Alley, "it 's Mr. Downs himself." And she smiled; for by this time, poor thing, she could pick up a little sprightliness. "What in this world,” said Miss Maria in low tones, "can he be coming here for, and from the back way? that is, if it 's him, which I don't -why, how d' ye, Mr. Downs? I did n't know you at first." "You knewed me, Miss Maria," he answered, as he was shaking hands, "but you knewed not these strange clothes, special comin' up the back way of a suddent like.” "Might have been something in that," she answered, trying to ignore another faint smile on Alley's face. "Come on business," he said when seated, and with many carefully selected words he proceeded to tell what it was, looking at one and the other alternately. They answered promptly that they had not a doubt of the verity of his statements, and that the fence should be made to conform to the newly ascertained line. "Well," said the visitor, with as much heartiness as he could command, "if you two had been a couple o' men, which I 'm thankful you ain't, I'd 'a' had to palarver and palarver about that line, and then maybe not satisfy 'em. But bein' women, it 's done settled in short order. I'll git Simyul Newsome to ride down there with me some time soon, so he can see they ain't no doubts about it. You can trust Simyul, I know." "Certainly," answered Miss Maria; "but we can trust you just as well, Mr. Downs." "I'm much obleeged;" and afterward he thought of a thousand more words which he could and would have said, but that they did not occur to him until after he had left the house. When he reached home, he gave some swift orders to his foreman, and then, after putting off his finery, and getting into his every-day things, rode straight to the Newsomes'. When he got there, if it had been to save his own life, or even that of Sim, he could not have told exactly how he felt. He began as coolly as it was possible to try to assume to be: "I'v been over to the Kindricks' this morn- it is, and the timber that 's on it, I'll leave it in', Simyul." thar for the surwivor." "Ah? I'm glad to hear it, Uncle Billy. I hope you found all well." "Yes; I heard no complaint. No; I were down there by me and their fence, and I concluded I'd peeruse on up to the house and let them females know that I acc'dental found out that the fence were n't exactly on the line betwix' us, but it run a leetle on my side. When I told 'em, they said they was perfect riconciled to have it sot right. I told 'em I'd see you about it first, so you could see I were n't mistakened, as I could show a cross-mark on a tree plain as open and shet. They 'lowed they was willin' to trust ary one of us, me and you." "Of course, Uncle Billy. I would have known they'd 'a' said that. About what difference does it make?" "I should say five acres, more or less, by the look of my eye." "All right; when you git ready, I'll speak to them, and they'll help you move the fence. I'll take your word for it." "That's what I sha'n't do, Simyul, and that's what I come to see you about." 66 Why, it's nothing but right." But in the tone of Mr. Downs and in his look was a firmness which convinced Sim that it would be useless to insist. "No, Simyul; not with the feelin's and the respects I has for them females. You want to know what I done soon as I got home from there? I called for Sam, I did, and I told him to let the hands drap everything, and go down there and tear down that fence, and then set it up again with sound rails, top to bottom, eend to eend, on the same line as before." "I cannot understand you, Uncle Billy." "I don't wonder at you, Simyul, for nother can I understand myself, not square, straight up and down. But let me tell you fur as I can see down into my own insides." Here Mr. Downs felt his eyes begin to tremble; so he turned them away from Sim, and thus proceeded: "When I got there in the cool o' the mornin' like, and I see them couple o' fine women a-settin' there in the piazzer, busy as two bees, and it look like the bein' of a widder have improved Alley to that, I could n't but say to myself, if it was me, and I was a young man, it seem like the sight of her would perfect blind a feller's eye. And then I say to myself, what a pity! because, when the time come, and Simyul Newsome and Miss M'ria Kindrick may see it their juty to be pardners, if for nothin' else, for conven'ence, and then when the prop'ty is divided, I said to myself, I sha'n't fence in that land, but I'll leave it right whar it is, vallible as VOL. XLIV.-103. "Why, law, Uncle Billy! I and cousin Maria have no such notion." "What?" cried Mr. Downs, turning upon Sim, his eyes dancing and his face aglow with smiles. "Well, well, well! Now my mind is easy, Simyul, which it hain't been before not sence they told me the breath were out o' poor Jones's body for good. I knewed it were n't egzact the thing to be thinkin' about it so yearly, but the good Lord know I could n't he'p it, and I say to myself it do look like the good Lord have flung another chance in your way, after givin' up so many times to Jones, which, poor feller, I hain't nary a word to say ag'inst him, now he 's dead and goned; but facts is facts, and I am now a-talkin' to you as a man o' jedgment in this world, which no man, and I may say no nobody else, ever deparches from it tell they time come, and when it do, you can't no more hender 'em from goin' than you can hender the sun from settin', and if he ever had a wife, the said wife is then cut loose, and that for good. Why, the very 'postle Paul writ that. Of course, you know, I ain't sayin' ary thing ag'inst Jones, a-layin' where he is, and a-leavin' of a wife which for beautiful I never see but one which was beyant her; but that was before you was borned. Let that all go now." Then with a gentle gesture he waved back the image of the love of his youth, and proceeded: "But to begin where we lef' off. When they told me that Jones, poor feller, have give up, it flash in my mind quick as thunder that it do look like Jones Kindrick have gone away peaceable and honor'ble, and flung his widder and his innercent infant on to you, a-knowin' that you would forgive him and do the best you could by both of 'em, and special when I did think on my soul this mornin' she was pooty as a pink, spite o' all her moanin' caliker, I say to myself, there 's Simyul Newsome's chance. As for the last surwivor, Miss M'ria, I'll yit leave that line fence jest as it is." Sim promised to ponder these words. VIII. WHEN One approaches and foresees the end of a story, detail is tiresome. Sim had promised to ponder, and he did so with entire fidelity and some rapidity. Even yet he had not parted. from all sense of the vast superiority of Jones over himself, and he looked with some dread upon the attempt to be a successor to such a man; but he remembered that he had given his promise to him to aid in having justice done to his widow and child; then Alley was more |