You 'n' me can settle whensomever it's convenant, say three months
from to-day. In course I shall talk up for the house whensomever and
wharsomever I go or stay. You know that. An' as for my bed," said Mr.
Pike finally, "whensomever I ain't here by bed-time, you welcome to
put any transion person in it, an' also an' likewise, when transion
custom is pressin', and you cramped for beddin', I'm willin' to give
it up for the time bein'; an' rather'n you should be cramped too bad,
I'll take my chances somewhars else, even if I has to take a pallet at
the head o' the sta'r-steps."

"Nervy," said Mr. Fluker to his wife afterwards, "Matt Pike's a
sensibler an' a friendlier an' a 'commodatiner feller'n I thought."

Then, without giving details of the contract, he mentioned merely the
willingness of their boarder to resign his bed on occasions of
pressing emergency.

"He's talked mighty fine to me and Marann," answered Mrs. Fluker.
"We'll see how he holds out. One thing I do not like of his doin', an'
that's the talkin' 'bout Sim Marchman to Marann, an' makin' game o'
his country ways, as he call 'em. Sech as that ain't right."

It may be as well to explain just here that Simeon Marchman, the
person just named by Mrs. Fluker, a stout, industrious young farmer,
residing with his parents in the country near by where the Flukers had
dwelt before removing to town, had been eying Marann for a year or
two, and waiting upon her fast-ripening womanhood with intentions
that, he believed to be hidden in his own breast, though he had taken
less pains to conceal them from Marann than from the rest of his
acquaintance. Not that he had ever told her of them in so many words,