TULLA
NSE keeps on rubbing his knees. His overalls are faded; on one knee a serge patch cut out of a pair of Sunday pants, wore iron-slick. “No man mislikes it more than me,” he says.
“A fellow’s got to guess ahead now and then,” I say. “But, come long and short, it won’t be no harm done neither way.”
“She’ll want to get started right off,” he says. “It’s far enough to Jefferson at best.”
“But the roads is good now,” I say. It’s fixing to rain to-night, too. His folks buries at New Hope, too, not three miles away. But it’s just like him to marry a woman born a day’s hard ride away and have her die on him.
He looks out over the land, rubbing his knees. “No man so mislikes it,” he says.
“They’ll get back in plenty of time,” I say. “I wouldn’t worry none.”
“It means three dollars,” he
