The Southerner

Tom seated himself at the table and looked into his wife's face with a smile: "Nancy, it's a meal fit for a king!" The supper over, he smoked his pipe before the cabin fire of blazing logs, while she cleared the wooden dishes. He watched her get the paper, goose-quill pen and ink as a prisoner sees the scaffold building for his execution. "Now we're all ready," she said cheerfully. The man laid his pipe down with a helpless look. A brief respite flashed through his mind. Maybe he could sidestep the lessons before she pinned him down.