The Lord knows there ain't nobody else going to marry him."

Canute drew his hand back from the latch as though it were red
hot. He was not the kind of man to make a good eavesdropper, and
he wished he had knocked sooner. He pulled himself together and
struck the door like a battering ram. Mary jumped and opened it
with a screech.

"God! Canute, how you scared us! I thought it was crazy Lou--
he has been tearing around the neighborhood trying to convert
folks. I am afraid as death of him. He ought to be sent off, I
think. He is just as liable as not to kill us all, or burn
the barn, or poison the dogs. He has been worrying even the poor
minister to death, and he laid up with the rheumatism, too! Did
you notice that he was too sick to preach last Sunday? But don't
stand there in the cold, come in. Yensen isn't here, but he just
went over to Sorenson's for the mail; he won't be gone long. Walk
right in the other room and sit down."

Canute followed her, looking steadily in front of him and not
noticing Lena as he passed her. But Lena's vanity would not allow
him to pass unmolested. She took the wet sheet she was wringing
out and cracked him across the face with it, and ran giggling to
the other side of the room. The blow stung his cheeks and the
soapy water flew in his eves, and he involuntarily began rubbing
them with his hands. Lena giggled with delight at his
discomfiture, and the wrath in Canute's face grew blacker than
ever. A big man humiliated is vastly more undignified than a
little one. He forgot the sting of his face in the bitter
consciousness that he had made a fool of himself He stumbled