"David Beasley's the quietest man God has made, but everybody
knows what he IS! There are some rare people in this world that aren't
all TALK; there are some still rarer ones that scarcely ever talk at
all--and David Beasley's one of them. I don't know whether it's because
he can't talk, or if he can and hates to; I only know he doesn't. And
I'm glad of it, and thank the Lord he's put a few like that into this
talky world! David Beasley's smile is better than acres of other
people's talk. My Providence! Wouldn't anybody, just to look at him,
know that he does better than talk? He THINKS! The trouble with Ann
Apperthwaite was that she was too young to see it. She was so full of
novels and poetry and dreaminess and highfalutin nonsense she couldn't
see ANYTHING as it really was. She'd study her mirror, and see such a
heroine of romance there that she just couldn't bear to have a fiance
who hadn't any chance of turning out to be the crown-prince of Kenosha
in disguise! At the very least, to suit HER he'd have had to wear a
'well-trimmed Vandyke' and coo sonnets in the gloaming, or read On a
Balcony to her by a red lamp.
"Poor David! Outside of his law-books, I don't believe he's ever read
anything but Robinson Crusoe and the Bible and Mark Twain. Oh, you
should have heard her talk about it!--'I couldn't bear it another day,'
she said, 'I couldn't STAND it! In all the time I've known him I don't
believe he's ever asked me a single question--except when he asked if
I'd marry him.
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