My Will married me—some say I married him—when I was a big feather-bolster kind of a gal, pink-cheeked and laughing and easy-going and heavy-eating. I will say, I always did have a tongue in my head, and loved to use it, just like a man with a keen knife loves to keep it sharp. But I used it fair and open. Some said I was lucky to get Will Dover, and some said he was lucky to get me. Will and me was both satisfied. I’d had men was more to look at, come courting me out at Pa’s place in the flat-woods, and I’d had men come was nothing but breath and breeches. Will had a gold tooth in the front of his mouth, and I always was a fool for a gold tooth. I takened to the little feller first time I seed him. I was a heap bigger’n him even then.

Third time he come out of a Sunday evening, Pa tipped back in his chair on the porch and said to Will, “Better look out, young feller, Quincey don’t take you for a play-dolly.”

Will looked him square in the eye.

“You ever tried to hold a hawk in your bare hand?” Will said.

“Why, no,” Pa said, “I’d know better.”

“Well, a hawk’s a heap littler’n you, ain’t he? But ’taint his size or your size makes you leave him be. It’s his nature. Now the gal ain’t growed so big in these flat-woods, could take me for a play-dolly. I ain’t got the size to hold Quincey, here, on my lap. But she shore as hell ain’t going to hold me on hers.”

Pa laughed and slapped hisself.

“Will Dover,” he said, “if you want her and she don’t take you, I’ll lick her with my own hands.”

“Ain’t nobody going to lick Quincey but me,” Will said, “and I aim just to reason with her.”

“Ain’t he something?” Pa said to me. “Quincey, I’ve always told you, you can’t judge no man by the length of his suspenders. You got to judge him by the spirit in him.”

And I done so. I takened Will first time he offered. The business he was in was just a mite in his favor. He run a livery stable in Oak Bluff, and he come courting in a light trap with a pair of black horses drove tandem. It kind of melted me. I hadn’t never see a pair of horses drove tandem.

Me and Will hit it off fine right from the start. He was little and he acted gentle, but couldn’t nobody press him no farther than he was o’ mind to be pressed. And that was one thing I disremembered as the years went by.