She ain’t been married but a week, but she’s served up sev’al self-made dishes a’ready—­all constructed accordin’ to wife’s schedule.

Of co’se I could see the diff’ence in the mixin’—­but it only amused me.  An’ Sonny seemed to think thet, ef anything, they was better ’n they ever had been—­which is only right and proper.

Three days after she was married, the po’ little thing whipped up a b’iled custard for dinner an’, some way or other, she put salt in it ‘stid o’ sugar, and poor Sonny—­Well, I never have knew him to lie outright, befo’, but he smacked his lips over it an’ said it was the most delicious custard he had ever e’t in his life, an’ then, when he had done finished his first saucer an’ said, “No, thank you, I won’t choose any more,” to a second helpin’, why, she tasted it an’ thess bust out a-cryin’.

But I reckon that was partly because she was sort o’ on edge yet from the excitement of new housekeepin’ and the head o’ the table.

Well, I felt mighty sorry to see her in tears, an’ what does Sonny do but insist on eatin’ the whole dish o’ custard, an’ soon ez I could git a chance, I took him aside an’ give him a little dose-t o’ pain-killer, an’ I took a few drops myself.

I had felt obligated to swaller a few spoonfuls o’ the salted custard when she’d be lookin’ my way, an’ I felt like ez ef I was pizened, an’ so I thess took the painkiller ez a sort o’ anecdote.

Another way Mary Elizabeth shows sense is the way she accepts discipline from the ol’ nigger, Dicey.

She’s mighty old an’ strenuous now, Dicey is, an’ she thinks because she was present at Sonny’s birth an’ before it, thet she’s privileged to correct him for anything he does, and we’ve always indulged her in it, an’ thess ez soon as she knowed what was brewin’ ‘twix’ him an’ Mary Elizabeth, why, she took her into the same custody, an’ it’s too cute for anything the way the little girl takes a scoldin’ from her—­thess winkin’ at Sonny an’ me while she receives it.

An’ the ol’ nigger’d lay down her life for her most ez quick ez she would for Sonny.

She was the first to open our eyes to the state of affairs ’twixt the two child’en, that ol’ nigger was.  It was the first year Sonny went North.  He had writ home to his ma from New York State, and said thet Mr. Burroughs had looked over his little writings an’ said they was good enough to be printed an’ bound up in a book.

Wife, she read the letter out loud, ez she always done, an’ we noticed thet when we come to that, Mary Elizabeth slipped out o’ the room; but we didn’t think nothin’ of it tell direc’ly ol’ Dicey, she come in tickled all but to death to tell us thet the little girl was out on the po’ch with her face hid in the honeysuckle vines, cryin’ thess ez hard as we was.  So then, of co’se, we knowed that ef the co’se of true love could be allowed to run smooth for once-t, she was fo’-ordained to be our little blessin’—­an’ his—­that is, so far as she was concerned.