wasn't even hated by the cowmen. And when a sheepman don't get eminent
enough to acquire the hostility of the cattlemen, he is mighty apt to
die unwept and considerably unsung.

"But that Marilla girl was a benefit to the eye. And she was the most
elegant kind of a housekeeper. I was the nearest neighbour, and I used
to ride over to the Double-Elm anywhere from nine to sixteen times a
week with fresh butter or a quarter of venison or a sample of new
sheep-dip just as a frivolous excuse to see Marilla. Marilla and me
got to be extensively inveigled with each other, and I was pretty sure
I was going to get my rope around her neck and lead her over to the
Lomito. Only she was so everlastingly permeated with filial sentiments
toward old Cal that I never could get her to talk about serious
matters.

"You never saw anybody in your life that was as full of knowledge and
had less sense than old Cal. He was advised about all the branches of
information contained in learning, and he was up to all the rudiments
of doctrines and enlightenment. You couldn't advance him any ideas on
any of the parts of speech or lines of thought. You would have thought
he was a professor of the weather and politics and chemistry and
natural history and the origin of derivations. Any subject you brought
up old Cal could give you an abundant synopsis of it from the Greek
root up to the time it was sacked and on the market.

"One day just after the fall shearing I rides over to the Double-Elm
with a lady's magazine about fashions for Marilla and a scientific
paper for old Cal.

"While I was tying my pony to a mesquite, out runs Marilla, 'tickled