"I know what you mean," she said. "I will not pretend that I do not. I am not going to marry Mr. North."
"Then why are you leaving the stage?" I asked, severely. "What else can you do to earn a living?"
She came closer to me, and I can see the look in her eyes yet as she spoke.
"I can pick ducks," she said.
We sold the first year's feathers for $350.
A POOR RULE
I have always maintained, and asserted time to time, that woman is no mystery; that man can foretell, construe, subdue, comprehend, and interpret her. That she is a mystery has been foisted by herself upon credulous mankind. Whether I am right or wrong we shall see. As "Harper's Drawer" used to say in bygone years: "The following good story is told of Miss ––––, Mr. ––––, Mr. ––––, and Mr. ––––."
We shall have to omit "Bishop X" and "the Rev. ––––," for they do not belong.
In those days Paloma was a new town on the line of the Southern Pacific. A reporter would have called it a "mushroom" town; but it was not. Paloma was, first and last, of the toadstool variety.