"I've got to make a start somewhere," said he. "I've been thinkin' a
machine shop's the best thing. I shall have to depend on somethin'
better 'n days' works."

Amelia flushed the painful red of emotion without beauty.

"I dunno what we're all comin' to," said she brokenly.

Then the tramp knew. He put his gnarled hand over one of hers. Rosie
looked up curiously from the speckled beans she was counting into a
bag, and then went on singing to herself an unformed, baby song.
"Folks'll talk," said Enoch gently. "They do now. A man an' woman ain't
never too old to be hauled up, an' made to answer for livin'. If I was
younger, an' had suthin' to depend on, you'd see; but I'm no good now.
The better part o' my life's gone."

Amelia flashed at him a pathetic look, half agony over her own lost
pride, and all a longing of maternal love.

"I don't want you should be younger," said she. And next week they were
married.

Comment ran races with itself, and brought up nowhere. The treasuries
of local speech were all too poor to clothe so wild a venture. It was
agreed that there's no fool like an old fool, and that folks who ride
to market may come home afoot. Everybody forgot that Amelia had had no
previous romance, and dismally pictured her as going through the woods,
and getting a crooked stick at last. Even the milder among her judges
were not content with prophesying the betrayal of her trust alone. They
argued from the tramp nature to inevitable results, and declared it