Scattergood was lonely sometimes.  In one of his moments of loneliness it had occurred to him that a great many men had wives, and that wives were, undoubtedly, a remarkably effective insurance against that ailment.

“I gather,” he said, in the course of a casual conversation with Sam Kettleman, the grocer, “that wives is sometimes inconvenient and sometimes tryin’ on the temper, but on the whole they’re returnin’ income on the investment.”

“Some does and some doesn’t,” said Kettleman, lugubriously.

“Hotel grub,” said Scattergood, “gets mighty similar.  Roast beef and roast pork!  Roast pork and roast beef!  Then cold roast pork and beef for supper....  And me obliged, by the way I’m built, to pay extry board.  Sundays I always order me two dinners.  Seems like a wife ’u’d act as a benefit there.”

“But there’s drawbacks,” said Sam, “and there’s mother-in-laws, and there’s lendin’ a dollar to your brother-in-law.”

“The thing to do,” said Scattergood, “is to pick one without them impediments.  I also figger,” he added, wriggling his bare toes, “that a feller ought to pick one that could lend a dollar to your brother in case he needed one.”

“Hain’t none sich to be found,” said Sam.

“I calc’late to look,” Scattergood replied.

He had already done his looking.  The lady of his choice, tradition says, was older than he, but this is a base libel.  She was not older.  She had not yet reached thirty.  Scattergood had first encountered her when she came to his hardware store to buy a plow.  On that occasion her excellent business judgment and her powers of barter had attracted him strongly.  As a matter of fact, he was a bit in doubt if she hadn’t the best of him on the deal....  Her name was Amanda Randle.

Scattergood gave the matter his best thought, then polished the buggy as aforesaid, and called.

“Howdy, Miss Randle?” said he, tying to her hitching post.

“Howdy, Mr. Baines?”

“I calculated,” said he, “that, bein’ as it’s a hot night, a buggy ride might sort of cool you off, after a way of speakin’.”

Amanda blushed, for the proffer of a buggy ride was not without definite significance in that region.

“I’ll git my shawl and bonnet,” she said.

To the casual eye it would have appeared that Scattergood’s summer was devoted wholly to running his hardware store and to paying court to Mandy Randle....  But this would not have been so.  He was making ready for the winter—­and for the spring that came after it.  For in the spring came the drive, and with the coming of the drive Scattergood foresaw the coming of trouble.  He was not a man to dodge trouble that might bring profit dangling to the fringe of her skirt.

Coldriver watched with deep interest the progress of Scattergood’s suit.  It had figured Mandy as an old maid—­for, as has been mentioned, she was close upon her thirtieth year, which, in a village where eighteen is the general age for taking a husband, is well along in spinsterhood.  It was late in October when Scattergood “came to scratch,” as the local saying is.