“Well, Sallie Carruthers will get him, and then there’ll be a dozen more to run the measure over—­children—­hey?  All girls!  A woman like Sallie would not be content with producing less than a dozen of her kind—­hey?”

His chuckle was so contagious that I couldn’t help but join him, though I didn’t like it so very much.  But why shouldn’t I?  Sallie is such a gorgeous woman that a dozen of her in the next generation will be of value to the State.  Still, I didn’t like it.  I didn’t enjoy thinking of Cousin James as so serving his country.

“Carruthers left her to James—­he’ll have to take care of her.  Henry turned toes in good time.  Piled rotten old business and big family on to James’s shoulders, and then died—­good time—­hey?  Get a woman on your hands, only thing to do is to marry or kill her.  Poor James—­hey?” He peered at me with a twinkle in his eyes that demanded assent from me.

“Why, Uncle Peter, I don’t know that Sallie has any such idea.  She grieves dreadfully over Mr. Carruthers, and I don’t believe she would think of marrying again,” I answered, trying to put enough warmth in my defense to convince myself.

“Most women are nothing but gourd-vines, grow all over a corn-stalk, kill it, produce gourds until it frosts, and begin all over again in the next generation.  James has to do the hoeing around Sallie’s roots, and feed her.  Might as well marry her—­hey?”

“Does—­does Cousin James have to support Sallie and the children, Uncle Peter?” I asked, coming with reluctance down to the rock-bed of the discussion.

“Thinks he does, and it serves him right—­serves him right for starting out to run a widow-ranch in the first place; it’s like making a collection of old shoes.  He let Henry Carruthers persuade him to mortgage everything and buy land on the river for the car-shops of the new railroad, which just fooled the town out of a hundred thousand dollars, and is going by on the other side of the river with the shops up at Bolivar.  If James didn’t get all the lawing in Alton County they would all starve to death—­which would be hard on the constitution of old lady Hargrove, and her two hundred-weight.”

“Oh, has Cousin James really lost all of his fortune?” I asked, and I was surprised at the amount of sympathetic dismay that rose in me at the information.

“Everything but what he carries around under that old gray hat of his—­not so bad a fortune, at that!—­hey?”

I feel I am going to love Uncle Peter for the way he disdainfully admires Cousin James.

“And—­and all of his—­his guests are really dependent on him?” I asked again, as the stupendous fact filtered into my mind.

“All the flock, all the flock,” answered Uncle Peter, with what seemed, under the circumstances, a heartless chuckle.  “They each one have little dabs of property, about as big as a handful of chicken feed, and as they have each one given it all to James to manage, they expect an income in return—­and get it—­all they ask for.  A lot of useless old live stock—­all but Sallie, and she’s worse—­worse, hey?”