“Huh!...” grunted Old Man Peterson, and they resumed their game.

Scattergood walked along in silence for a few paces; then he regarded Mr. Spackles appraisingly.

“Mr. Spackles,” said he, deferentially, “I dunno when I come acrost a man that holds his years like you do.  Mind if I ask you jest how old you be?”

“Sixty-six year,” said Spackles.

“Wouldn’t never ‘a’ b’lieved it,” marveled Scattergood.  “Wouldn’t ‘a’ set you down for a day more ’n fifty-five or six, not with them clear eyes and them ruddy cheeks and the way you step out.”

“Calc’late to be nigh as good as I ever was, Scattergood.  J’ints creak some, but what I got inside my head it don’t never creak none to speak of.”

“What I want to ask you, Mr. Spackles,” said Scattergood, “is if you calc’late a man that’s got to be past sixty and a woman that’s got to be past sixty has got any business hitchin’ up and marryin’ each other.”

“Um!...  Depends.  I’d say it depends.  If the feller was perserved like I be, and the woman was his equal in mind and body, I’d say they was no reason ag’in’ it—­’ceptin’ it might be money.”

“Ever think of marryin’, yourself, Mr. Spackles?”

“Figgered some.  Figgered some.  But knowed they wasn’t no use.  Son and daughter wouldn’t hear to it.  Couldn’t support a wife, nohow.  Son and daughter calc’lates to be mighty kind to me, Scattergood, and gives me dum near all I kin ask, but both of ’em says I got to the time of life where it hain’t becomin’ in ’em to allow me to work.”

“How much kin sich a couple as I been talkin’ about live on?”

“When I married, forty-odd year ago, I was gittin’ a dollar a day.  Me ‘n’ Ma we done fine and saved money.  Livin’s higher now.  Calc’late it ’u’d take nigh a dollar ‘n’ a half to git on comfortable.”

“Figger fifty dollars a month ’u’d do it?  Think that ’u’d be enough?”

“Scattergood, you listen here to me.  I hain’t never earned as much as fifty dollar a month reg’lar in my whole life—­and I got consid’able pleasure out of livin’, too.”  They had walked up the street until they were passing the Penny residence.  Grandmother Penny was sitting on the porch, knitting as usual.  She looked very neat and dainty as she sat there in her white lace cap and her lavender dress.

“Fine-lookin’ old lady,” said Scattergood.

Mr. Spackles regarded Grandmother Penny and nodded with the air of a connoisseur.  “Dum’d if she hain’t.”  He lifted his hat and yelled across the road:  “Mornin’, Ellen.”

“Mornin’, James,” replied Grandmother Penny, and bobbed her head.  “Won’t you folks stop and set?  Sun’s a-comin’ down powerful hot.”

“Don’t mind if we do,” said Scattergood.  He seated himself, and mopped his brow, and fanned himself with his broad straw hat, whose flapping brim was beginning to ravel about the edges.  Presently he stood up.

“Got to be movin’ along, Mis’ Penny.  Seems like I’m mighty busy off and on.  But I dunno what I’d do without Mr. Spackles, here, to advise with once in a while.  He’s jest been givin’ me the benefit of his thinkin’ this mornin’.”