Friends 71
occurs, the best thing to do is for one of you to retrace your steps, and come past the tree on the side your friend took.
Don’t make a friend a present of a knife; for, according to every authority versed in sign lore, if you do, it will cut your friendship. All sharp-edged tools are equally unfitted as presents for the same reason.
“There was Sue Perkins, years ago, and Harry Wright was keepin’ company with her. One day he gave her a pair of scissors. They was beautiful scissors too. Some of ‘em told her not to take ‘em, and said it would cut their friendship. But she said she didn’t care anything about their signs. ‘We sha’n’t have any trouble between us. I know we won’t,’ she said. But I’ll be blamed if they didn’t have a row inside of a month, and Harry Wright stopped callin’, and Sue Perkins lived and died an old maid.”
