Mr. Spackles was suddenly red and embarrassed, but Grandmother Penny beamed.

“Why,” says she, “makes me feel like a young girl ag’in.  To be sure I’ll go.  Daughter’ll make a fuss, but I jest don’t care if she does.  I’m a-goin’.”

“That’s the way to talk,” said Scattergood.  “Mr. Spackles’ll be round f’r you bright and early.  Now, if you kin spare him, I calc’late we got to talk business.”

When they were in the street Mr. Spackles choked and coughed, and said with some vexation: 

“You went and got me in f’r it that time.”

“How so, Mr. Spackles?  Don’t you want to take Mis’ Penny to the circus?”

“Course I do, but circuses cost money.  I hain’t got more ’n a quarter to my name.”

“H’m!...  Didn’t calc’late I was askin’ you to take a day of your time for nothin’, did you?  F’r a trip like this here, with a lot hangin’ on to it, I’d say ten dollars was about the fittin’ pay.  What say?”

Mr. Spackles’s beaming face was answer enough.

Grandmother Penny and Mr. Spackles went to the circus in a more or less surreptitious manner.  It was a wonderful day, a successful day, such a day as neither of them had expected ever to see again, and when they drove home through the moonlight, across the mountains, their souls were no longer the souls of threescore and ten, but of twoscore and one.

“Great day, wa’n’t it, Ellen?” said Mr. Spackles, softly.

“Don’t call to mind nothin’ approachin’ it, James.”

“You be powerful good company, Ellen.”

“So be you, James.”

“I calculate to come and set with you, often,” said James, diffidently.

“Whenever the notion strikes you, James,” replied Grandmother Penny, and she blushed for the first time in a score of years.

Two days later Pliny Pickett stopped to speak to Scattergood in front of the hardware store.  Pliny supplemented and amplified the weekly newspaper, and so was very useful to Baines.

“Hear tell Ol’ Man Spackles is sparkin’ Grandmother Penny,” Pliny said, with a grin.  “Don’t figger nothin’ ’ll come of it, though.  Their childern won’t allow it.”

“Won’t allow it, eh?  What’s the reason?  What business is ’t of theirn?”

“Have to support ’em.  The ol’ folks hain’t got no money.  Spackles ’s got two-three hunderd laid by for to bury him, and so’s Grandmother Penny.  Seems like ol’ folks allus lays by for the funeral, but that’s every red cent they got.  I hear tell Mis’ Penny’s son has forbid Spackles’s comin’ around the house.”

This proved to be the fact, as Scattergood learned from no less an authority than Mr. Spackles himself.

“Felt like strikin’ him right there ‘n’ then,” said Mr. Spackles, heatedly, “but I seen ’twouldn’t do to abuse one of Ellen’s childern.”

“Um!...  Was you and Grandmother Penny figgerin’ on hitchin’ up?” Scattergood asked.