I never saw sech courtin' as you all's anyhow," she concluded.

"It don't seem to lead nowhar, nor to end in nothin' except itself.

That's what this here ever-lastin' education has done for you, Abel--if you hadn't had those books to give you something to think about, you'd have been married an' settled a long time befo' now.

Yo' grandpa over thar was steddyin' about raisin' a family before he was twenty." On either side of the stove, grandfather and grandmother nodded like an ancient Punch and Judy who were at peace only when they slept.
Grandfather's pipe had gone out in his hand, and from grandmother's lap a ball of crimson yarn had rolled on the rag carpet before the fire.
Twenty years ago she had begun knitting an enormous coverlet in bright coloured squares, and it was still unfinished, though the strips, packed away in camphor, filled a chest in Sarah's store closet.
"You wouldn't like any girl I'd marry," he retorted with a feeble attempt at mirth.

"If I tried to put your advice into practice there'd be trouble as sure as shot." "No, thar wouldn't--not if I picked her out," she returned.
"Great Scott! Won't you let me choose my own wife even ?" he exclaimed, with a laugh in which there was an ironic humour.