Page:Teeftallow-1926.djvu/107

over his lot fence into the public road, and Abner received a fleeting impression that the old man had never left off doing this since he had seen him last.

Squire Meredith put down his basket and hailed Abner with pleasure. He began shouting questions in a large out-of-door voice asking Abner how he liked the railroad work, how he liked the town, how he liked his boarding house, did he get a good one, when Abner interrupted to ask for Mary Lou.

Squire Meredith changed from his cordial tone completely.

"Now, look here, you've got a note fer Mary Lou."

"Yes, I have," admitted Abner uncomfortably.

"Is it from that snake-in-the-grass Peck Bradley, or from that low-down, no-'count, whisky-guzzlin' windy-mouthed Tug Beavers?"

Still more reluctantly, Abner acknowledged it was from Tug. "Well, I don't want my gal to go traipsing off with none o' his kind," stated Mr. Meredith flatly.

"Squire Meredith," inquired Abner logically, "who in this neighbourhood can she go with, then?"

"None, I reckon! None a-tall!" stormed the old man, shaking his fist at a reprobate world. "Ever'body an ever'thing's gone to the dawgs, and here it is right at the end of the world—it does look like we're all bound fer destruction together. Oh, my Lord, young man, where air we bound fer! Where air we bound fer!"

Abner recalled with a little shock that the world was indeed to end in October—and he had forgotten it. He was amazed at his own feather-headedness. He said frankly to the Squire, "I be dad blame', do you know, Squire Meredith, I forgot what you tole me about that, shore as God made little apples?"

"You forgot it down in that wicked gamblin' city!" declaimed the old man, "and it's jest where you should have remembered it the most."

"That shore is right," admitted Abner, astonished at his own folly.

"Ay, Lord," sighed the old man, "and Lot prayed if they