IN WHICH MOLLY FLIRTS On a November morning several weeks later, when the boughs of trees showed almost bare against the sky, Molly Merryweather walked down to Bottom's store to buy a bottle of cough syrup for Reuben, who had a cold.

Over the counter Mrs.Bottom, as she was still called from an hereditary respect for the house rather than for the husband, delivered a coarse brown paper.

The store, which smelt of dry-goods and ginger snaps, was a small square room jutting abruptly out of the bar, from which it derived both its warmth and its dignity.
"Even men folks have got the sperit of worms and will turn at last," she remarked in her cheerful voice, which sounded as if it issued from the feather bed she vaguely resembled.
"Let them turn--I can do without them very well," replied Molly, tossing her head.
"Ah, you're young yet, my dear, an' thar's a long road ahead of you.

But wait till you've turned forty an' you'll find that the man you throwed over at twenty will come handy, if for nothin' mo' than to fill a gap in the chimney.

I ain't standin' up for 'em, mind you, an' I can't remember that I ever heard anything particular to thar credit as a sex--but po' things as we allow 'em to be, thar don't seem but one way to git along without 'em, an' that is to have 'em.