"No, no, Niece Ruth!" exclaimed Mr. Ball, "you ain't interruptin' no
honeymoon. It's a great pleasure to your aunt and me to hev you here--we
likes pretty young things around us, and as long as we hev a home,
you're welcome to stay in it; ain't she Jane?"
"She has sense enough to see, James, that she is interruptin' the
honeymoon," replied Aunt Jane, somewhat harshly. "On account of her
mother havin' been a Hathaway before marriage, she knows things. Not
but what you can come some other time, Ruth," she added, with belated
hospitality.
"Thank you, Aunty, I will. I'll stay just a day or two longer, if you
don't mind--just until Mr. Winfield comes back. I don't know just where
to write to him."
"Mr.--who?" demanded Aunt Jane, looking at her narrowly.
"Mr. Carl Winfield," said Ruth, crimsoning--"the man I am going to
marry." The piercing eyes were still fixed upon her.
"Now about the letters, Aunty," she went on, in confusion, "you could
help Uncle James with the book much better than I could. Of course it
would have to be done under your supervision."
Mrs. Ball scrutinized her niece long and carefully. "You appear to be
tellin' the truth," she said. "Who would best print it?"
"I think it would be better for you to handle it yourself, Aunty, and
then you and Uncle James would have all the profits. If you let some one
else publish it and sell it, you'd have only ten per cent, and even
then, you might have to pay part of the expenses."
"How much does it cost to print a book?"
"That depends on the book. Of course it costs more to print a large one
than a small one."
"That needn't make no difference," said Aunt Jane, after long
deliberation. "James has two hundred dollars sewed up on the inside of
the belt he insists on wearin', instead of Christian suspenders, ain't
you, James?"
"Yes'm, two hundred and four dollars in my belt and seventy-six cents in
my pocket."
"It's from his store," Mrs. Ball explained. "He sold it to a relative of
one of them heathen women."
"It was worth more'n three hundred," he said regretfully.
"Now, James, you know a small store like that ain't worth no three
hundred dollars. I wouldn't have let you took three hundred, 'cause it
wouldn't be honest."
The arrival of a small and battered trunk created a welcome diversion.
"Where's your trunk, Uncle James?" asked Ruth.
"I ain't a needin' of no trunk," he answered, "what clothes I've got
is on me, and that there valise has more of my things in it. When my
clothes wears out, I put on new ones and leave the others for some pore
creeter what may need 'em worse'n me."