“I reckon ’twas about the third day that I noticed she was getting sweet on Hammond.  She was giving him the best of all the vittles, and used to set at the table and look at him, softer’n and sweeter’n a bucket of molasses.  Used to walk ’longside of him, too, and look up in his face and smile.  I could see that he noticed it and that it was worrying him a heap.  One day he says to me: 

“‘’Edge,’ says he, ’I b’lieve that ’ere chromo of a Lobelia ’Ankins is getting soft on me.’

“‘’Course she is,’ says I; ‘I see that a long spell ago.’

“‘But what’ll I do?’ says he.  ’A woman like ’er is a desp’rate character.  If we hever git hashore she might be for lugging me to the church and marrying me by main force.’

“‘Then you’ll have to marry her, for all I see,’ says I.  ’You shouldn’t be so fascinating.’

“That made him mad and he went off jawing to himself.

“The next day we got the schooner patched up and off the shoal and ‘longside Lazarus’ old landing wharf by the shanty.  There was a little more tinkering to be done ’fore she was ready for sea, and we cal’lated to do it that afternoon.

“After dinner Hammond went down to the spring after some water and Lobelia ’Ankins went along with him.  I laid down in the shade for a snooze, but I hadn’t much more than settled myself comfortably when I heard a yell and somebody running.  I jumped up just in time to see Hammond come busting through the bushes, lickety smash, with Lobelia after him, yelling like an Injun.  Hammond wa’n’t yelling; he was saving his breath for running.

“They wa’n’t in sight more’n a minute, but went smashing and crashing through the woods into the distance.  ’Twas too hot to run after ’em, so I waited a spell and then loafed off in a roundabout direction toward where I see ’em go.  After I’d walked pretty nigh a mile I heard Hammond whistle.  I looked, but didn’t see him nowheres.  Then he whistled again, and I see his head sticking out of the top of a palm tree.

“‘Is she gone?’ says he.

“‘Yes, long ago,’ says I.  ‘Come down.’

“It took some coaxing to git him down, but he come after a spell, and he was the scaredest man ever I see.  I asked him what the matter was.

“‘’Edge,’ says he, ’I’m a lost man.  That ’ere ’orrible ’Ankins houtrage is either going to marry me or kill me.  ‘Edge,’ he says, awful solemn, ‘she tried to kiss me!  S’elp me, she did!’

“Well, I set back and laughed.  ‘Is that why you run away?’ I says.

“‘No,’ says he.  ’When I wouldn’t let ’er she hups with a rock as big as my ’ead and goes for me.  There was murder in ’er eyes, ‘Edge; I see it.’

“Then I laughed more than ever and told him to come back to the shanty, but he wouldn’t.  He swore he’d never come back again while Lobelia ’Ankins was there.

“‘That’s it,’ says he, ’larf at a feller critter’s sufferings.  I honly wish she’d try to kiss you once, that’s all!’