SOMETHING THAT HAPPENED
and gentlemen," he was arguing frantically. "'T ain't fair. 'T ain't right. I won't have it! I'll see a priest. I'll find a parson. If it ain't proper to live with people, it ain't proper to die with 'em. I tell you I won't have Amy careerin round with strange men. She always was foolish about men. And I'm breakin' my heart for her, and Mother's gettin' old, and the house is goin' to rack and ruin, but how—how can a man go and get married comfortable again when his mind's all torturin round and round and round about his first wife?"
The Partridge Hunter gave a sharp laugh under his breath, yet he did not seem exactly amused. "Laugh for two!" I suggested, as we dodged out of sight round the corner and plunged off into the actual Outdoors.
The heat was really intense, the October sun dazzlingly bright. Warmth steamed from the earth, and burnished from the sky. A plushy brown rabbit lolling across the roadway dragged on one's sweating senses like overshoes in June. Under our ruthless, heavy-booted feet the wet green meadow winced like some tender young salad. At the edge of the forest the big pines darkened sumptuously. Then, suddenly, between a scarlet sumach and a slim white birch, the cavernous wood-path opened forth
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