“Thar, thar, don’t you begin pesterin’ Blossom,” interposed Abner, aroused at last from his apathy.

“Notions about Mr. Mullen!” repeated Blossom, and though there was a hot flush in her face, her tone was almost one of relief.

CHAPTER IX

IN WHICH MOLLY FLIRTS

On a November morning several weeks later, when the boughs of trees showed almost bare against the sky, Molly Merryweather walked down to Bottom’s store to buy a bottle of cough syrup for Reuben, who had a cold.  Over the counter Mrs. Bottom, as she was still called from an hereditary respect for the house rather than for the husband, delivered a coarse brown paper.  The store, which smelt of dry-goods and ginger snaps, was a small square room jutting abruptly out of the bar, from which it derived both its warmth and its dignity.

“Even men folks have got the sperit of worms and will turn at last,” she remarked in her cheerful voice, which sounded as if it issued from the feather bed she vaguely resembled.

“Let them turn—­I can do without them very well,” replied Molly, tossing her head.

“Ah, you’re young yet, my dear, an’ thar’s a long road ahead of you.  But wait till you’ve turned forty an’ you’ll find that the man you throwed over at twenty will come handy, if for nothin’ mo’ than to fill a gap in the chimney.  I ain’t standin’ up for ’em, mind you, an’ I can’t remember that I ever heard anything particular to thar credit as a sex—­but po’ things as we allow ’em to be, thar don’t seem but one way to git along without ’em, an’ that is to have ’em.  It’s sartain sure, however, that they fill a good deal mo’ of yo’ thought when they ain’t around than when they are.  Why, look at William, now—­the first time he axed me to marry him, I kept sayin’ ‘you’re still slue-footed an’ slack-kneed an’ addle-headed an’ I’ll marry you whether or no.’  Twenty years may not change a man for the better, but it does a powerful lot toward persuadin’ a woman to put up with the worst!”

“Well, best or worst, I’ve seen enough of marriage, Mrs. Bottom, to know that I shouldn’t like it.”

“I ain’t denyin’ it might be improved on without hurtin’ it—­but a single woman’s a terrible lonesome body, Molly.”

“I’m not lonely, while I have grandfather.”

“He’s old an’ he ain’t got many years ahead of him.”

“If I lose him I’ll go to Applegate and trim hats for a living.”

“It’s a shame, Molly, with the po’ miller splittin’ his heart over you.”

“He’ll mend it.  They’re like that, all of them.”

“But Mr. Mullen?  Ain’t he different now, bein’ a parson?”

“No, he’s just the same, and besides he’d always think he’d stooped to marry me.”

“Then take Jim Halloween.  With three good able-bodied lovers at yo’ beck an’ call, it’s a downright shame to die an old maid just from pure contrariness.  It’s better arter all, to eat dough that don’t rise than to go hungry.”