The meeting was opened with the singing by the congregation of familiar hymns, in which Henley joined harmoniously with a fair bass. It was known of him that he never declined an invitation to lead in prayer, and on being asked this evening he readily complied. His voice was deep and round and mellow, and the burden of his utterances was suitable to that or any other religious occasion, being a sort of singsong tribute to the eternal glory of humility and submission to the divine will. The prayer was followed by a rousing sermon from the preacher, and, in closing, he called attention, as Henley evidently had gathered from some source that he would do, to the future plans of the organization. The time was ripe for work in the highways and byways—the sowing of seed in out-of-the-way places, and the preacher was to "take the road" with one or two good singers, a cornet-player, and a cottage-organ, and give people in isolated mountain-nooks a chance to hear the Word and profit thereby for their eternal weal.

He had just seated himself and was mopping his perspiring brow when Henley rose and stood hemming and hawing and clearing his throat.

"I want to say in this same connection," he began, "that I plumb approve of this new idea of taking the great and living Truth into remote corners of our spiritually dark land. Here in Chester we are, you might say, basking in the sunshine of Christian civilization, but away out off of the main roads in the mountains the Book hain't read and prayer hain't held except now and then. I heard that you had already entered into negotiations with an Atlanta tent factory to furnish you with a tabernacle, an' I must say it ain't a bad notion, because many a fine bush-arbor meeting has been busted all to flinders by sudden showers that good, stout canvas would shed as well as a roof of shingles. I want to contribute five dollars toward the fund myself; but I'm here to confess to you frankly that I wouldn't like to see the money throwed away. The great majority of them meeting-tents on the market are simply made to sell and not for hard use. They look all right in the sample-room, but they are full of starch to give 'em body, and when they get wet they are about as porous as a fish-net."

"That's a fact, Brother Henley," spoke up the preacher, with a slow and deliberate nod. "We've been looking around and receiving circulars from all sides, and we have found it purty hard to run across a durable tent at a price we can afford; but there was a drummer here from Nashville the other day, and he claimed—"

"I'd advise you to let drummers alone, too," and Henley brushed away the preacher's words with a firm and all-wise hand. "You see, in my constant contact at the store I know 'em all the way down to the ground. They are the most ungodly pack on earth. Most of 'em drink and play poker, an' never look inside of a Bible. The fact is, if I may be allowed to speak of it at such a time, I happened myself, awhile back, to buy a whopping big tent from a stranded show. I thought at the time that some such a need as this might arise, and so I bid it in. To get it, I had to pay for a lot of old planks and such-like, but in doing it I secured a rattling good thing. It was a bargain; but I could let a good organization like yours have it for a sight less than a new tent not halt as big would cost. It would last a lifetime. It is big enough to hold the multitude that ate the loaves and fishes. It was made for rough wear and must have cost a pile of money. I don't know but what we all could agree on a price—that is, if I had any idea of how much your body would feel disposed to—to invest in a tent."

"We have fifty dollars in the treasury," spoke up the preacher, with an eagerness that blended in his face and voice. "Of course, it may not be near enough to—" He blew his nose and coughed.

Henley stroked his face thoughtfully, and he had the look of a man who was making a polite effort to be resigned to disappointment.

"Well, of course, I had hoped that I might do much better than that," he said finally, looking around at the anxious group, "but, as I said at the start, I want to help you along. You know I said I'd contribute five myself, so—to be accurate—we'd better call the price fifty-five. Then I'll take what you've got in the treasury and call it even."

There was a murmur and shuffle of released suspense throughout the hall. The preacher beamed joyfully as he reached forward and shook Henley warmly by the hand.

"There's no use putting it to a vote," he said. "I'll take the responsibility and accept your magnificent offer right now. Brethren, we are in luck. A special providence seems to have been at work through the whole thing. A vain and ungodly enterprise broke down in our midst, and we are, by our act, directing streams of evil into channels of good. In putting this tent to our use we will be turning over the tables of the money-changers, and causing grain of righteousness to grow where tares of evil flourished."

As Henley walked homeward along the lonely road he mused: "I could have run that crowd up to seventy-five as easy as not. They would have raked up the balance, but I reckon a fellow ought to let well enough alone."

Of all the denizens of Chester and its environs, no one had keener enjoyment over the gossip concerning these various deals than Dixie Hart. She had enough of the speculative tendency in her make-up to heartily appreciate the situation in all its phases, and she was glad, too, that her friend had found, so soon after his return home, such good opportunities to exercise his rare gifts. She went into the store only a day or two after the sale of the tent, and found Henley alone.

"So you won out in that venture, after all?" she laughed. "And, if what folks say is true, you made big money."

"I'm not out of the woods yet," he smiled. "There is always a drawback, you know." He pointed through the open doorway to the lion's cage on the shoemaker's lot across the street. "I've still got that thing, and I'm afraid it's going to be a white elephant. I'm sorry, too, for I'd like to make a clean sweep, just because folks bet that I'd lose heavy. I'd give the cage away if I could do it, but, like a fool, I went and said that I'd show 'em that I could turn every item in the lot over at a profit."

"What are you asking for it?" Dixie inquired.

"Twenty-five dollars," he replied. "If I can't sell it like it stands I'll split it up an' use the iron some way or other."

"It would be a pity to do that," the girl said, thoughtfully. "Let me take a look at it."

He stood in the doorway and watched her as she crossed the street in her easy, graceful way, and then he saw her approach the lion's cage, turn the bolt of the door, and look in, and heard the sound of her fist as it rapped against the wooden sides. Then she disappeared. She had entered the cage and was out of sight for several minutes. Emerging, she came directly across the street to Henley, her head hanging thoughtfully, a slight flush on her face.

"You may think I've plumb lost my senses," she smiled, "but I want to buy that thing. I've heard so much about your deals that I'm itching to speculate some myself. You seem to have come to the end of your rope as far as this cage is concerned, and I want to try my hand. They say two heads is better 'n one, if one is a cabbage-head."

"You?—good Lord, what could you do with it?" Henley gasped.

"A heap of things," she retorted, lightly. "You've been offering it for twenty-five dollars, and I'm going to take you up. I had just started to the bank to deposit some money, and so I happen to have the ready cash."

She put her hand into her pocket and drew out a roll of bills, but Henley held up his hand protestingly, and flushed red.

"You don't spend your hard-earned money like that and through my foolish example," he said. "I've had experience in all sorts of junk-handling, and what I do is a different matter. Besides, I know there's no money to be made out of that thing. I got the cream out of the deal, and I won't let you throw money away."

Jim Cahews came in at this moment, and, redder in the face than ever, Henley explained the situation.

"Alf's right, Miss Dixie," the clerk joined in. "You'd better take his advice. If there was anything in that old pile of iron he'd have seen it long ago."

But her money was lying on the show-case before Henley's eyes, and she had retreated to the door.

"I've bought it," she insisted. "It's mine, and I'm going to make some money out of it, too. I'm tired of working like a corn-field nigger for puny profits, while you men make jokes here in the shade and get rich at it."

Henley refused to touch the money. His flush had given place to a look of pained concern.

"I can't—just can't let you do it!" he said. "Like a good many women, I reckon, Dixie, you look at the dealings of men from the outside, and are willing to go an' plunge into unknown waters and get ducked and leave your money at the bottom. Profit ain't ever made by getting in at the tail-end of another fellow's venture. I've squeezed this thing dry, and—"

"I'm a more experienced milker than you are," Dixie laughed, "and the cage is mine. There's your money. It's mine, and if I make money out of it I won't have you grumbling, either."

Henley and Cahews exchanged glances of actual alarm.

"What do you intend to do with it?" Henley almost snapped in his impatience.

"Did anybody ask you what you intended to do with it when you bought it?" Dixie asked. "You haven't any right to ask. But I'll tell you one thing. I'm not going to turn it into a corn-crib, though it would make a dandy, and one that no nigger could steal from. I'm buying it to sell for at least twice as much as I've paid for it, and I want you to watch me. I've been tickled mighty nigh to death over your late deals, and I want to amuse you. I know you'd like to see me make some money, and I'm going to do it as sure as I'm knee-high to a duck."

When she had gone Henley and Cahews stood in the doorway disconsolately staring after her as she walked briskly down the street.

"You see, Jim, I'm afraid I'm responsible for it," the storekeeper said, with a frown. "She's got a long head for a woman in most matters, but she's had it turned by watching this little game of mine. It is the first time I've ever seen her fly off the handle at all. As a rule she's very cautious, but, Lord, Lord, the idea of paying twenty-five dollars for that thing! Why, if it gets out she'll be the laughing-stock of the town."



CHAPTER XV

The next morning when Henley arrived at the store, Cahews, who with a face drawn long was standing at the front, pointed mutely at the lion's cage. Henley looked and groaned. It bore a pasteboard placard, and the words, in big, irregular capitals:

FOR SALE. APPLY TO DIXIE HART.

"She come in here yesterday evening after you'd gone," Cahews explained, "and borrowed my marking-pot and brush. Then she had me get her the pasteboard, and after she had painted the sign she took the nail-box and hammer and went over there and tacked it up. A crowd of school-boys was watching, and raised a laugh, but she come away without paying any attention to them. I tried to get her to reason a little, and told her the money was there in the drawer waiting for her to change her mind, but she said she knowed exactly what she was about, and if I'd lie low I might learn a trick or two in business methods."

"She's off—she's away off!" Henley sighed. "And I'm plumb sorry, for she is, in many other ways, as quick as a steel trap and bright as a new dollar."

One morning, two days later, as the storekeeper was at his desk in the rear writing letters, his attention was called by a keen whistle from Cahews, who stood in the front-door wildly signalling him to approach. And going to the clerk, who was now on the front porch staring toward the lion's cage, he saw that Seth Woods, the begrimed shoemaker, had torn down the placard and stood looking into the cage.

"He's mad about it, I'll bet," was Henley's troubled comment. "I reckon folks have been guying him. That railroad man said he consented to let me use the lot. Maybe he lied to close the trade."

"Maybe he did," agreed Cahews; "but look! What do you make of that?"

A negro man with the shoemakers bench on his shoulder had turned the corner and was headed for the cage. "Put it inside an' go back for the rest," they heard Woods order.

Wonderingly, Henley strode across the street and reached the cage just after the negro had put down the bench on the inside and was coming out of the narrow doorway.

"What's the meaning of this?" Henley inquired of the shoemaker.

"Why," and a complacent smile broke through the grime on Woods's face, "it means, Alf, that I'm at last my own landlord. I've been paying old Welborne fifty dollars a year rent fer that little hole in a wall, away back from the square, because I couldn't get enough ahead to build on this lot or get any other shop. I think I've had a stroke of luck, and, strange to say, it come through a woman. Yesterday evening Dixie Hart come in my shop and axed me if I could straighten the heels of her shoes while she set thar. I told her certainly, an' while I was at work we got to talking first on one topic and then on another. She likes my wife an' daughter, an' she said a good deal about 'em. She axed me if I had any objections to lettin' this cage, which she said she had raked in from you at a big bargain, to set on my lot till somebody come along and bought it. I thought buyin' sech a thing was a powerful quar thing for a young woman to do, but of course I didn't say so to her, for it wa'n't any o' my business. Well, one thing fetched on another till she got to lookin' about my shop while I was trimmin' the heel-taps, an' all at once she wanted to know—if thar was no harm in axin'—what rent I was payin'. I told 'er fifty dollars, an' she whistled kind o' keenlike an' said: 'My gracious! an' got a vacant lot, too, right in the heart o' the square.' I explained to her that I wasn't able to build a shop, an' was afraid I never would be, gettin' old like I am an' so many to feed. Then, Alf, what you think that gal said? As cool as a cucumber in a spring branch, as she set thar wigglin' her toes in 'er stockin' feet, she said: 'You'd better listen to me, an' I'll fix you so you won't have any rent to pay. That lion's cage, just at it stands, with the door openin' on the sidewalk, would make the dandiest shoe-shop in seven States. It's plenty wide and long; it is well-roofed with painted sheet-iron, an' would be as tight in cold weather as a jar of preserves. It faces every street that leads into the square, and you'd get twice as much custom there as you do away back here next to this little pig-trail alley.' By gum, what she said struck me like a bolt of lightnin'. I'd examined the cage, as everybody else in town has, I reckon, an' I knowed all about it, so I up an' axed 'er what she'd paid you for it, an' she kind o' dodged my question.

"'Has that got anything to do with it?' she axed, an' I told 'er, I did, that I heard you was offerin' it fer twenty-five dollars. That seemed to set 'er studyin' fer a minute, an' then she said:

"'To tell you the truth, Mr. Woods, that is all I had to pay, but I got it, you mought say, at that figure by the very skin o' my teeth. In a thoughtless moment Alf Henley said he'd take twenty-five, and, knowing what it was railly worth, I yanked out the money on the spot and laid it down. He's a gentleman'—she said—'Alf Henley is a plumb gentleman, but he tried his level best to back down. Jim Cahews will testify that I was actually obliged to leave the money on the counter and walk out before he'd give in.' Is that so, Alf?"

"I am obliged to say it is, Seth," Henley answered, flushing. "Some'n like that actually did take place."

"I didn't think she'd fib about it," Woods went on, "and I finally axed her what she'd take, an' she said nothin' less than fifty dollars cash down would interest her, as she had a winter cloak to lay in, an' shoes for three women, an' what not.

"I told her fifty looked purty steep, but she throwed herself back an' laughed hearty. She said my rent in the shop fer one year alone would pay it, and after that I'd be a free man. She said in the summer I could prop up both these flap sides, to cut off the sun, an' the wind would blow clean through. She said the very oddity of the thing would draw trade, that I could have the picture of the lion painted out an' a big boot an' shoe put in place of it. Oh, I can't begin to tell you all she said. She'd 'a' been talkin' till now if I hadn't traded: Besides, betwixt me'n you, she give me a scare; you see I was afraid the thing would slip through my fingers, fer she set in to talkin' about havin' it moved to t'other side o' the square and rentin' it fer a barber-shop, an' she 'lowed, too, that it would be a bang-up thing to sell to a convict-camp to keep chain-gang prisoners in.

"As a last resort, I axed her, I did, if she thought I ought to pay her a clean hundred per cent. profit, an' she said: 'That ain't for you to consider at all, Mr. Woods. You must jest let your mind rest on what you are goin' to get out of it. Alf Henley's made money out of it; I must make my part, and you can do the same. It is the way business is run all over the world. As soon as it becomes yours, somebody may come along and pay you a hundred for it, though you'd be a fool to let it go even at that. You are the one man in all the world that ought to hold on to it.' She was right, Alf. I'm tickled over the change. I feel like a new man. You ought to have seen old Welborne's face when I told 'im I was goin' to vacate. He swore Dixie Hart was a meddlesome hussy, an' that she had cheated the hindsight off of me. He said she owed him an' was behind in her pay, an' that he was goin' to fetch 'er to taw."

Henley went back to his desk. There was a flush on his brow.

"Beat to a finish, and by a girl," he mused. "Here I've been thinking I had nothing to learn about trading, and she picks up one of my remnants and turns it over at a hundred per cent. profit as easy as knitting a pair of socks. If I'd lived a hundred years I'd never have thought about that shoe-shop."



CHAPTER XVI

Henley did not see Dixie Hart till a week had elapsed. He had started to drive over to Carlton one morning, when he passed her as she was mending a rail-fence round one of her fields which extended down to the road. She had on a sunbonnet and heavy gloves, and stood in a dense patch of prickly blackberry briers which reached to her shoulders.

"That work's too hard for you," Henley greeted her cordially. "I've done all sorts of jobs on a farm, from splitting rails to feeding a steam thresher, and they are picnics beside what you are now at."

"I believe you are right," she smiled, as she pushed back her bonnet and exposed her red face and neck. "But I had to do it; the pigs have rooted away the rotten rails next to the ground under these briers and got in to my turnips and potatoes. But I've nearly finished, thank goodness."

"I'm off for Carlton," he informed her. "I go every day or so now on business. Is there anything I can do for you over there?"

"There really is, Alfred." She parted the clinging briers and came quite close to him in one of the fence corners which was infested with the wild growth. She had drawn off her gloves, and now thrust a pink hand into her pocket and got out a handkerchief, in a corner of which were tied some coins. "I want you to step into the book-store and get me a Second Reader—the sort they use in the public schools over there. It's for little Joe. I'm learning him to read, and he's doing it as fast as a dog can trot."

"I wish you'd let me pay for the book," Henley ventured, as she put the money into his hand. "You know I've got twenty-five dollars of your cash, anyway. That old cage wasn't worth anything."

"You mean I've got twenty-five dollars of your money," she retorted. "Why, I've been ashamed to look you in the face. I didn't act right about it, and I hardly know why I done it. As a friend to you I ought to have told you about the chance I saw and not set in to gain myself. I don't feel right about it. I'd rather you'd have it—I can't feel like it's mine. You'd made money out of all the other things, and you ought to have made a clean sweep of the whole job."

"You are forgetting two main things," he said, gravely, his eyes averted. "You forget that you paid me all I asked for the blame thing, and that if it hadn't been for you I'd not have been at the sale of the circus, anyway."

"You mean—" She flushed knowingly, and avoided his earnest gaze.

"That you stopped me that night, and kept me from doing the biggest fool thing a sensible man ever was guilty of. I've thanked you in my heart, Dixie, thousands and thousands of times. It would have ruined me for life, but you looked ahead and saw it and saved me."

"Oh, well, that's past and gone," Dixie said, touched by a certain new and deep quality in his voice. "I'll keep the money if you want me to. I really need it. Old Welborne got hopping mad at me for ousting his tenant, and simply rowed me up Salt River. Some day I may come to you for legal advice. I want you to look over the document he got me to sign. I want to know more about it than I do. There are too many 'aforesaids' and 'herebys' in it to suit me. I bought that farm with my eyes shut. I was so anxious to own land that I was willing to take the property on any terms. Welborne is getting to be like that old man in the fairy-book that stuck to the feller's neck and never could be shook off till he was made drunk. Welborne never touches a drop, you know, and so he'll stick till death claims him. I'm in an awful mess. I work like a slave from break of day till away after dark, and never seem to move a peg toward any sort of landing-place."

"You really ought to marry," Henley said. "That's exactly what you ought to do. There's many a good man in the world that is actually suffering for the need of the right sort of a helpmeet."

"You hit the nail on the head that whack," she said, quite seriously. "I know I'm better-looking now—when I'm fixed up, at least—than I will be ten years later; and I've got sense enough to know that old maids don't make natural-looking brides. No, I really ought to give the subject more thought. I ain't acting in a businesslike way about it. I ought to put myself on the market, but I let first one thing and then another interfere, and now it seems to be little Joe. I think I've got a sort of mother-love for him, Alfred. He works over in his field, and me in mine, and when it's twelve o'clock I get out my dinner-bucket and call to him, and we both go down to the spring and have a picnic. That's where I learn him to read. If old Pitman was to get on to it I reckon he'd raise a row. Joe fetches his pore little scraps of streak-o'-lean, streak-o'-fat bacon an' hoe-cake along, but I make 'im throw the stuff away. I don't know, but I believe I'd rather see that child's big, hungry eyes as I open that bucket than to be admired by the handsomest young man in the county. I don't know, though—I've never tried the young-man part."

"Yes, you ought to marry, Dixie." Henley, with the true feeling of a gentleman that he ought not to sit while she stood, got out of his buggy and leaned on the fence. "I'm going to confess that I've thought a lot about that very thing since I got home, and, if I'm the judge I think I am, I believe I've run across the very man for you."

"You don't say!" Dixie cried, eagerly. "Well, well!"

"You know I drive over to Carlton every now and then," Henley went on, "and as Jim always has a few pounds of butter, a box or so of eggs, and the like, to send, I take 'em to a store run by a young feller that I always did like. Jasper Long is his name. He got his start by the hardest licks that was ever dealt by a poor boy. He was a half-orphan, and had to take care of his old mother till she died and left him all alone. He drove a dray about town till he was twenty, and with money he'd saved he set up for himself in business. He's the wonder of the town now, for he made money hand over fist. He's hitched on a brick warehouse to his shebang, and buys cotton when it reaches its lowest ebb and holds it till it gets to the top—then he lets loose. Me and him are pretty thick, and when I go over there either I have to eat with him at the hotel or he does with me. Sometimes we toss up head-or-tails to see who pays."

"I've never seen him," Dixie said, quite interested, "but I've heard about him. Carrie Wade said he come out to camp-meeting one Sunday, and was pointed out as a big catch, but she said he was sort of clumsy and awkward in his movements."

"Carrie wouldn't think his gait was so bad if he was trotting at her side," commented Henley. "But Long's all right; he's honest, and straight as a shingle. I'd trust him to act square in any deal, and that's a lot to say these times. He ain't had much to do with women. You see, they've got a sort of stuck-up society crowd over there that don't think he's quite the thing, and so he's out of what you might call the elyte. His sort are the kind that always count in any struggle, though. He bunks in a big, wide bed in the back end of his store, and one night when I had to lie over there because the river was out o' banks he made me sleep with him. That was the time I advised him to marry. It pleased him powerful, and he up and told me that he'd been giving the matter considerable thought and investigation. He said that every now and then it would occur to him that precious time was passing, but that he'd been so busy he'd not had time to go at it right. He said that most of the women on any list of the kind he'd seen was fussy and looked lazy and thriftless. Then he come right out and asked me if I happened to know a suitable candidate, and—well, Dixie, I couldn't hold in. I talked as earnest as a preacher at a ranting revival. I had his eye and I helt it clean through. I described you to him and—"

"You did?" Dixie laid an eager hand on his arm and laughed merrily, "What did you say? Tell me exactly. I won't let you leave till you do. Tell me, Alfred."

"Oh, I couldn't do that, Dixie!" Henley flushed to his hat. "I'd make a botch of it. I could talk to him, but I couldn't to you—at least—at least not on that line."

"But you've got to do it!" the girl insisted. "I want to hear it. I've always wanted to know what a man would say about me behind my back. I know what women will say, for they will tell you to your teeth exactly what they will behind your back, only worse, if they can possibly do it. Try to remember exactly what you said."

Henley's blood burned fiercely in his tanned face. "I couldn't tell you like I did him, and I hain't going to try. I ain't made that way—some men are, but I ain't."

"You are afraid I'll feel bad about it, I see," the girl said, with well-assumed severity, and she glanced aside that he might not read the look of conscious power in her eyes. "You and me have been such stanch friends that you hate to tell me what a poor opinion you have of me and my looks. I see. I see. Well, I hain't got no right to think anybody would think well of me—you least of all."

"Shucks! If you'd heard me you'd never complain," Henley burst forth. "I told him you was the prettiest thing that ever wore shoe-leather; that you had hair of a reddish-brownish mixture that no man could begin to describe, and eyes so big and deep and drawing-like that a feller couldn't look in 'em without wondering what they was made of, and cheeks and lips as red and ripe and laughing as—"

"That will do," Dixie laughed, pleasurably. "You was determined to trade me off, and you went at it like I was a horse you was trying to get rid of for more than he was worth. Well, what else did you say?"

"Why, I told 'im about your awful struggle against adversity; about the hold old Welborne had on you; about your mother and aunt being helpless on your hands, and about how you wanted to add to it all by helping Pitman's bound boy. But when I told him the other day about the way you bought and sold that lion's cage I thought he would bust wide open. He throwed himself back agin the counter and yelled and clapped his hands. Said he:

"'Alf, that's the woman for me. Every trading man, needs a partner like her. Such women as her are the mothers of kings and presidents and great geniuses. My mother was that way; she made me what I am.' And then he railed out against conditions that could make you undergo so much hardship, and said he'd just love to give a girl like you a good home that you could keep neat and clean and in apple-pie order. He said his life was lonely, and that he wanted to see a smiling face at the window when he got home after work. He says he's able to build as good a house as any man in Carlton, and that he already owns a corner lot on Tilbury Avenue, the swell street of the town. The truth is, he wants to take a look at you powerful bad, and I promised him, if it was possible, that I would—"

"Well, I don't know about that," Dixie objected suddenly, and her pretty brow wrinkled. "You know what they say about a burnt child. I've already as good as offered myself to one chap. I didn't come up to requirements, and I don't want to do it again. What you'd say to him about me and what he'd actually think are two different things. If I was to meet him and I saw from his looks that he didn't think much of your judgment I'd hate you both and feel like scratching your eyes out. I'd make a sensible man a good wife, and I'd do my part; but I'll be hanged if I'll walk up to him wearing a 'For Sale' tag. What you say is mighty interesting, and I may let it bother me a good deal, for a woman owes it to herself to look out for number one, but there is a line of self-respect that a woman can't cross. I'm in an awful mess, and I'd marry to get out of it. You may say what you please about me to him, but that's as far as I'll go."

"You don't think you could send the poor chap some word or other?" Henley ventured, at the end of his diplomacy, as he got into his buggy and took up the reins.

"No, I don't," was the thoughtful answer. "He's a friend of yours, and you recommend him high enough, but we hain't been introduced, and to take any step beforehand on my side would be unbecoming of a lady, and that's what I am."

"Yes—of course, and you know best," said Henley, as he clucked to his horse, "but Long will be powerfully disappointed. He's got sort of keyed up over this thing, and it has gone and unsettled him. I reckon he's got a pretty picture of you in his mind, and keeps it before him all the time."

"That's it," said Dixie. "And I wouldn't like to see it turn to a chromo on his hands. I know what I look like to myself, but I wouldn't expect to suit every taste."



CHAPTER XVII

That evening, just after dark, when Henley drove his horse into his barn-yard, he saw Dixie over in her own lot milking her cow. She was a brave, erect little figure as she stood in the soft, black loam. "So, so!" she was saying in her sweet, persuasive voice to the restless animal. "Can't you stand still and keep that pesky fly-brush out of my eyes? Them hairs cut like so many knives when they are flirted about like a wagon-whip. You may as well let me get that milk out of your bag. It will give you trouble through the night if you don't."

Henley turned his horse into one of the stalls, and fed him with fodder and corn in the ear, and came and leaned on the fence behind her. She was now crouched down beside the cow; he could see her brown, tapering arms and wrists against the cow's flank, and hear the milk as it ran into her tin pail with a sharp, intermittent sound. Above the back of the cow, of which she seemed a part in the thickening darkness, loomed up her cottage. There was a yellow light in the kitchen from a bank of blazing logs in the wide-open fireplace. Henley waited till she had finished and stood up.

"Hard at it," he jested. "Day or night, it's all the same to you. I wonder if you work when you are asleep."

"Huh," she laughed, as she advanced toward him, her pail swinging by her side. "This is my reception-day, and this is my parlor. Won't you come in and set awhile? Take that rocking-chair over near the piano—or maybe you'd rather smoke in the bay-window, where you can get fresh air."

"What's the joke now?" he inquired. "I'm not exactly on."

"Why, you see, you are the second beau I've had right here in the mud, and with these dirty clothes on, in the last ten minutes."

"The second?" he said, wondering what she was driving at.

"Yes," she made answer, as she rested her pail at her feet and stood smiling blandly at him. "Hank Bradley has just left. He come over to invite me to go with a party of girls and boys to the Springs day after to-morrow. I wish I knew exactly what to do in a case like that. I want to go—my! I want to go so bad I hardly know what to do. Mother and Aunt Mandy both think I ought to accept such invitations. I know folks talk about Hank, and say all sorts of things about girls he goes with. But he says he has quit drinking and gambling and wants to settle down. His sister, Mrs. Bailey, is going along to give respectability to it, and it is to be a great blow-out. I've never been on such a trip; they say there is a lot of fashionable Atlanta folks at the hotel, and a fine band, a ten-pin alley, and a lawn-tennis court, and I hardly know what all."

"Hank Bradley? Good gracious!" Henley said, but he could think of nothing further that would voice the protestations running wildly through his brain.

"Oh, I see you'll oppose it, too," she sighed. "I reckon I've just been trying to make myself believe I ought to go. Hank begged so hard, and—and said such nice things about liking me. I reckon almost any girl would want to believe even a fellow like him, if she'd been a wall-flower all her life, and somehow didn't think she ought to be."

"But did you accept—did you? That's the main thing," Henley asked, and his eyes were fixed on her mobile face where the pink shadows chased one another beneath her long, drooping lashes.

"No, not positive," she said. "I simply couldn't get rid of him to do my work without saying something; so I agreed to talk it over with my folks and let him know after supper. He is to send a man over for the answer. I already see my finish—I see it in the way you are staring at me right now."

"He ain't for you, Dixie," Henley answered, decidedly. "You said once that you looked on me like a big brother. Well, if your brother was to see you driving off that way beside that man—that sort of a man—he'd be miserable. I can't do much to show my interest and friendship—though I've tried hard to think of some way. I know you deserve more than has come to you. You are young and full of life, and bright and pretty—so pretty that you'd be the main one in any cluster, and it is hard to think you have to pass your days as you do. But Hank Bradley ain't the one to extend a hand. He ain't—God knows he ain't."

"I know it; you needn't say another word." The girl came nearer. The moon was out now in a clear sky, and its rays fell athwart her face and gleamed in the gold of her abundant tresses. His hand was resting on the top rail of the fence, and she laid her own on it reassuringly. "Don't bother, big brother," she said, in a deep, trembling tone. "I'll write him that I can't go. I'd not enjoy a minute of it knowing that your judgment was against it. Let's not talk about it. Let's talk about something else. I've been thinking all day about that Carlton storekeeper."

"Your ears must have burned." Henley betrayed his relief by the free breath he drew. "I saw him over there, and we talked about you for an hour on a stretch. I wasn't going to see him, but he heard I was in town and sent his porter after me. He wanted to see me about you."

"Me? That's funny, if you ain't joking."

"I ain't joking," Henley declared. "He said he'd been unable to get his mind on business like he used to. He says, from what I've told him, that he knows just how you look. He pinned me down again about fetching you over there; and when I told him that you felt sort of backward about taking such a step, he seemed more tickled than set back. He said he'd seen so many women that throwed theirselves at him and interfered with his movements that the hold-off sort was just what he was looking for. He went on and told me about the old maids that knitted socks for him, and the giddy young ones that tittered and looked at him out of the corners of their eyes whenever he passed, and how many widows and mothers of gals was trading at his store now that hadn't before, and how much bother they all was in refusing to let his clerks wait on 'em, and was always coming back to his desk to make him get what they needed."

"Shucks, I'll bet he's had his head turned," was Dixie's comment. "Well, he needn't think he's the whole show; they wouldn't do him that away if he didn't have money. Well, I needn't criticise them, for, as good as I think I am, I don't reckon I'd give him a second thought if he was just a farm-hand at seventy-five a day. Money adds a lot to a person, and I reckon if a girl went about it right and as a matter of duty she could love a rich man as quick as a poor one."

"Well, I simply couldn't head 'im off," Henley resumed. "I couldn't get around his arguments. He said there was a way you and him could meet without compromising your pride, and that was this: he said me and you was good friends, and that if I wanted to make you pass a pleasant day I could invite you to drive over there next Saturday week and see the fire tournament that is to be held."

"Well, he's got cheek enough, I must say," Dixie said. "I reckon he might let you run your own business and extend your own invites. It ain't for him to up and dictate to you—huh! I say!"

"But, you see, I'd already told him that I'd enjoy fetching you over at any time. You see, he knowed it would be a pleasure to me. I'm going over, anyway, and your company the ten miles and back would be a sight better than being alone."

"Well, that's different," said Dixie, "and I really would enjoy the trip. But it would have to be fully understood that I went just with you, and was not going along to exhibit myself, to see if I'd suit him or not."

"Good!—now you've hit it!" Henley laughed. "It will be fun all round. I'm going again to-morrow, and I'll tell him to be—I'll tell him me and you have decided to take in the tournament."

"Yes, put it that way," said Dixie, and she took up her pail. "It may be a flash in the pan, and I'd hate everybody in creation—you included—if I was accused of—of missing fire the second time!"

They both happened to glance toward the cottage, and standing framed in the kitchen doorway with a background of light they saw a mute and motionless figure.

"It's little Joe!" Henley exclaimed. "Wait, I forgot what you sent me for." He went to his buggy and returned with a parcel. "I got the Second Reader, and I had the man put in a Geography-book full of pretty maps and pictures. I thought maybe Joe would—"

"He'll be tickled to death," Dixie cried, as she reached for the parcel. "The poor little fellow is watching us now. I told him you'd bring it to-night, and he's been down several times to see if you was back. It's awfully sweet of you, Alfred, to think of the Geography. I need it myself, and me and Joe'll study it together. If that thing we was talking about should happen to go through, the first move I'd make would be to try to get that boy out of Pitman's clutch. I love 'im—he's so gentle and patient that I can't help it."

They heard a step behind them, and, turning, they saw old Wrinkle peering at them through the dark as he stood near the barn.

"If that's you, Alf," he called out, "you'd better come on to supper. After a square meal at the Carlton Hotel you may look on our fare as purty pore stuff. But you may choke it down. It's gettin' cold; the grease in the beef hash is turnin' to tallow, an' the bread was baked yesterday an' is as hard as a brick."

"All right; I'm with you," Henley said, good-naturedly, as he saw Dixie hurrying away.



CHAPTER XVIII

On the morning set for the excursion to Carlton, Henley went down to the stable and harnessed and hitched his horse to his buggy. Old Jason, who was with him, made no offer to assist with the various buckles and straps, but stood leaning in the barn-door chewing tobacco. He was sufficiently courteous, however—as Henley started away with the remark that he was going to give Dixie Hart a lift over to Carlton and back—to slouch in front, his hands in his pockets, his tousled head bared to the slanting rays of the sun, and open the big gate.

Reaching the front-door of Dixie Hart's cottage, Henley had only a minute to wait. Mrs. Hart, followed by her sister with an arm in a sling, came down the steps with a mincing step, her weak eyes shaded by her thin hand, and approached him.

"It's powerful good of you to take my daughter," she said, in grateful tones. "She has so little pleasure in her life, and she's been wanting to go to Carlton for a long time. A place even as much like a city as that is, kind o' interests a young girl. She's always reading about the doings over there among the rich folks."

"I'll see that nothing happens to her, and fetch her back safe," he promised. Then Dixie emerged from the house wearing her best dress, a white muslin, immaculately clean and well ironed, and adorned by broad, pink ribbons which heightened her complexion. Her hat was new and most becoming, and as she rustled out to the gate he felt a thrill of pride in having such a presentable companion. She touched her mother playfully under the chin and kissed her on the cheek.

"Now, Muttie," she said, "you've got to be on your good behavior while I'm off or I'll switch you good when I get back. I have put the exact feed for the horse in his trough, and pumped the tub full of water, and you only have to let down the stable-door bars at twelve and he'll do the rest. The chicken-feed is already mixed in the dish-pan, and you only have to tilt it out of the kitchen-window and they'll divide it amongst 'em."

"Oh, I can attend to everything!" Mrs. Hart remarked to Henley. "I reckon you've found out that she's a regular case."

"Case or not," Dixie broke in, as Henley was smiling and nodding his response, "I'm not through yet. If I don't tell you, you'll be begging for something to eat amongst the neighbors. Your dinner is already cooked and the coffee made. All you'll have to do is to set it on the coals and warm it up. The sugar is right at the coffee-pot, and the cream is in the spring-house to keep it from souring.

"I didn't dare hint to 'em about—about that Carlton fellow," Dixie said, in a confidential tone, as they drove away. She was holding her big hat on to keep it from blowing off in the crisp current of their own making.

"You didn't?" he said, interrogatively, charmed as he had never been before by her propinquity and vivaciousness.

"Not after being sold as bad as I was by letting them know about that other scrape," she laughed, as she glanced at him archly. "Why, they would meet us a mile out on the road to-night—the halt leading the blind—to know every particular. No, I've been burnt once, and I don't want a second coat of blisters."

"You certainly look stunning." Henley allowed his admiring eyes to take her in from head to foot. "You needn't be one bit afraid of what that galoot will say. I tell you I've been about over the country and I know a thing or two."

"Well, I've got my all on my back," she said—"that is, except my wedding outfit. I don't know how I'll ever get my money out of it. I've thought about selling it, but nobody of my size seems to be marrying round here. Even if this thing is a go—I mean even if me and Mr. Long do come to terms—I don't believe I'd feel just right in using it. It would be sort o' like marrying in widow's weeds, wouldn't it?"

They were now passing Farmer Wade's house, on the edge of the village, and they saw Carrie on the veranda-steps with Johnny Cartwright at her side. The couple stood close together, and Henley saw that the boy was holding Carrie's hands and gazing at her ardently. Seeing the passing buggy, Carrie suddenly drew herself back and stared at them curiously. There was no salutation from either side, and Henley drove on, noting that Dixie kept her eyes on the pair till they were out of sight.

"I thought I'd give her a good, straight look," she said, "so she'd see that I wasn't doing anything I am ashamed of. I know that girl through and through, and you mark my words, Alfred, she'll be low enough to throw out hints about me driving with a young, married man like you. The way she's acting with that poor silly boy is disgusting. His poor old mother is so upset she's talking to everybody about it. She is afraid Carrie will actually run off with him, and Carrie will, too, if she gets a good chance—she's just that desperate. It's funny how mean, spiteful folks can make other people the same way. Right now, I'd rather have this Long man come out here and take me to meeting where Carrie could see it than to do a kind deed of any sort."

After this, to Henley's mystification, she did not talk as freely as at the outset, and she seemed to be very thoughtful. As they were driving into the bustling town, she looked at him fixedly and said:

"The papers say the programme don't begin till eleven o'clock. That's the hour set for the first race with the reel-wagons. I was just wondering what we'd better do to kill time till then. I hain't got a thing to buy that you hain't got in your stock at home, and I hain't a person to go in and nose about and have clerks pull down a whole raft of bolts and boxes without paying for the trouble. You see, I reckon it ain't later 'n nine o'clock now, and—"

"Oh, I see," said Henley. "Why, Dixie, I sort o' mapped it out this way. You see, knowing how anxious Long will be to meet you right off, I thought we'd drive straight to his shebang and 'light and hitch. He's got a chair or two in the back-end of his shack, and we could kind o' set about, and when he ain't waiting on customers, why, we—"

"I thought you had more sense than that," Dixie burst out with unexpected warmth. "You can go there if you like, but I won't go a step! Huh, I say—I would cut a purty dash, wouldn't I?—setting around amongst chicken-coops, lard-cans, and salt pork for a fool, vain man to look me over and sniff and feel set back because I didn't happen to—to come quite up—shucks! I don't believe any of you men understand women. Huh! but we understand you all right."

"I'm awfully sorry I made you mad," Henley stammered. "You know, Dixie, I wouldn't say a thing for worlds that would—"

Dixie laughed. "You couldn't make me mad at you to save your life, Alfred. I'm mad at myself, that's all, for starting out on such a silly jaunt. I might have knowed that it would be hard to put this thing through in any decent shape. I don't care what Long'll say or think. I come over here to this tournament with you, at your invite, and if he shows by a single bat of the eye that he thinks I meant anything else he'll hear something that will ring in his ears till he's put under ground. I reckon the idea never got within a mile of his brain that he may not suit me at all. Why, I may hate the very sight of him."

"You no doubt will if you keep on looking at the thing that way," said Henley, admiring the very mystery that cloaked her words and manner, and quite convinced that she was wiser, in some vague way, at least, than all the rest of mankind put together. "I only thought that would be the best way to start the ball rolling."

"Well, it won't start at all if I have to tote it to the top of a hill and give it the first kick," Dixie said, firmly. "I'm a big fool. I'll bet you haven't a bit of respect for me. That other racket of mine was enough to brand me as the champion woman idiot of the earth, and this goes that one better. What's the use o' being a fool if you don't learn sense by it?"

"Oh, don't talk that way, Dixie," Henley protested, at the end of his resources. "I thought we was going to have such a fine time, and now you hardly know what you want. If you won't go to his store, then I'll tell you what we could do. The public wagon-yard is the best place to see the tournament from. I could unhitch at the edge of the sidewalk in the shade of the trees, and you'd have a reserved seat through it all."

"That's some better, anyway," she said, as if relieved. "I come near showing my temper, didn't I? Well, I've got one hid away inside of me, and it kicks up sand sometimes when I'm least expecting it."

Leaving his sprightly charge in the buggy watching the gathering of the festive crowd and listening to the blatant music of the town band from the balcony of the Carlton House, Henley, making some excuse about having to mail a letter, hastened round a corner and down to Long's store.

The young man, in his best suit of clothes and with the odor of bay-rum in his smooth, compact hair, and the barber's powder on his razor-scraped face, was busy giving instructions to his chief clerk.

"Don't come to me to ax a single question," Henley overheard him saying. "This is one day I simply will have off. If there is anything you don't know about, let it lie over—tell 'em I'm on the committee of entertainment, tell 'em any darned thing you want to, but don't bother me. Oh!" He had caught sight of Henley, who stood half hidden by a stack of soap-boxes, and came forward, his face falling. "My Lord, Alf, don't tell me you didn't fetch her in!" he panted. "Good Lord, don't say that!"

Henley grinned and explained the situation, much to the storekeeper's relief.

"It don't railly make any great difference." Long twisted his small mustache under its coat of pomade till the ends looked like facial spikes, and pulled at his white waistcoat. "I had a nigger make a bucket of lemonade with ice in it, and left an order at the hotel for three of the best meals they know how to put up. I supply the shebang with produce, and I stand in with 'em. They would spread themselves for me. I was counting on having us all three eat in my back-room. I wanted to do exactly the right thing, you see, so she'd know at the outset that I understand how to make a woman comfortable, and that I ain't a man to split hairs when it comes to a little outlay."

"The back-room wouldn't suit at all." Henley was already a wiser man than when he left home that morning. "I wouldn't think of asking her or any decent woman to eat in a room where you bunk, or where anybody bunks, for that matter—male or female."

"I'll just countermand that order, then," Long said, "and we'll all go to the hotel. We'll see the fust part of the show from the buggy, and then repair to the big dining-room and have our banquet."

"I think she'd really like that," Henley declared, "but I'm going to give you both the slip and take dinner with Judge Temple's folks. They made me promise to come the next time I was in; besides, I want to give you both full swing on this day of days."

"Right you are," Long rubbed his heavy hands together in delight, "and you may have the worth of your meal in the finest cigars in my shebang. Alf, you are my friend. Let's go down where she's at. To tell you the God's holy truth, man to man, I don't feel half as good as I make out. It wouldn't take the weight of a hair to make me show the white feather. I have a sort of forewarning that I ain't agoing to walk straight into this thing. If she'd 'a' driv' right up to the front, and got out and gone back to the rear and set down and looked about like she was taking stock of my belongings, I'd have knowed how to proceed, but this way of having to walk a plank that she's propped up has made me sorter weak at the knees. How do I look, anyway—honest, I don't want any flattery? If you think I'd look better in my silk plug-hat and long Prince Albert I can whisk 'em on in a jiffy."

"You are just right." Henley charitably viewed the individual from his own point rather than that of the over-critical Dixie. "In hot sun like this to-day your straw hat will look better, and that sack coat fits like a kid glove."

"I sorter thought this would be the thing." Long bent down and for the twentieth time dusted his shoes with his handkerchief. "Now get them cigars." He led the way to a show-case near the front. "Help yourself—them's the genuine Havana fillers in the corner. Take good ones—by George, take the best."

"I won't take but one," Henley said, as he opened the case and reached for a cigar. "I don't like to collect pay in advance; and while I don't want to throw cold water on you, Long, I'm free to confess I don't know exactly how she'll act. I always knowed women was curious, but they are more curious about selecting a mate than everything else combined. When I was talking this meeting up at such a rate, I thought I could count on 'er; but, la me! she's got me so mixed that I don't know whether I'm a Methodist preacher or an escaped convict. But let's go down. I want to see what you'll make of her."



CHAPTER XIX

As the two friends approached the buggy, Dixie, who had seen them, suddenly turned her head in an opposite direction and seemed to be laughing immoderately at the beginning of a barrel-race. To attract her attention Henley cleared his throat and coughed. But whether she heard he never knew. At all events she was heartily amused, as was evidenced by her free laughter and the sparkle of her merry eyes. As it was, Henley reached the buggy and clutched the front wheel and shook it, while, with his left hand, he held Long's arm in a nervous grasp.

"Oh, it's you!" she said, sweeping him with a careless glance and allowing her eyes to be drawn back at once to the racers. "Ain't it fun? You ought to have seen that boy try to climb the greasy pole just now. He put sand all over his pants to make 'em rough, but he could only go so high, and there he stopped, unable to budge a hair's-breadth. He hung to it for a minute, as red as blood in the face, and then begun to slide down as slow as the hour-hand of a clock till he sat flat on the ground."

"I fetched Mr. Long down; you know—you may remember he wanted to meet you," Henley stammered, under a restraint that was new to him. And, as the couple stared at each other, he finished with a gulp—"Mr. Jasper Long, Miss Dixie Hart—Miss Dixie Hart, Mr. Jasper Long."

Dixie was polite and absolutely unruffled, while Long was one straight flush from head to foot. "Come—come over to see our brag show?" he stuttered, with an untoward jerk of the body, for he had tried to put his foot on the hub of the wheel and missed it. It was a bow so pronounced that Long's hat was dislodged and hurled to the ground. In his shocked sympathy for his friend, Henley was bewildered by noting that Dixie was actually subduing a laugh, her rebellious lips covered with her white-gloved hand. Long secured his hat, drew himself up, and repeated his platitude.

"I thought I would," she said, now gravely studying his face, his hair, his clothing, and his broad, restless hands, on the backs of which rather long hairs lay beaded with perspiration. "Alfred was coming along, and as I have never been to a tournament before, and as he was so set on bringing me, I decided to make the trip. I've heard him speak of you. You are in the bank, ain't you?"

"Why, no, Miss Dixie—" Henley began, but there was a certain warning quality darting from her eyes, now fixed on him, that broke into his puzzled correction, and then he caught the drift of her harmless pretence and obliterated himself with a low grunt of perplexity.

"Why, no, I'm J. W. Long, of the 'Live and Let Live Grocery,'" the merchant said. "The other feller is L. A. I've had circulars scattered broadcast all over your county. Looks like you'd have seen some of 'em. I believe in lettin' folks know you are alive and in the push. I'm surprised that Alf didn't tell you about me and my business, even if you hain't heard it from others over your way or through the papers."

"There are some Longs that rented land from me a few years ago," Dixie said, evasively. "I wonder if they are akin to you. Seems to me, now I think of it, that you favor 'em some."

"They may be away-off fourth or fifth cousins, I don't really know." Long looked as if he thought the conversation had taken quite an unprofitable turn. "I never was much of a hand to keep track of far-off kin. Folks is liable to want credit on a score like that, and think they never have to settle."

Then the colloquy languished. Henley was plainly not a success as a manager of delicate situations. What puzzled him beyond any mystery he had ever stumbled on in the intricate make-up of his charming neighbor was her evident cool and detached enjoyment of his and Long's awkwardness. At any rate, he reflected with satisfaction, he could extricate himself from the tangle, and in that, at least, he felt that he had the advantage of Long.

"I see an old fellow over there at that covered wagon that was bantering me for a hoss-trade the other day," he courageously threw into the gap. "I believe I'll go see how he talks now. There will be a sight of hoss-flesh change hands to-day. I understand there's a gypsy camp in the edge o' town, and they are the dickens on a swap."

"Hold on a minute!" Long called out, as Henley was moving off, his hat lifted. "I want to see you."

Henley pulled up a few yards away, behind Dixie's back, and Long joined him.

"Are you going to leave me the bag to hold?" Long asked, in a tone of blended gratification and nervousness.

"I don't see that I'm doing you one bit of good," Henley answered, gravely. "This is your day of grace. If you can't fix things up after what I've done we'll have to call it off. I've done my part. I fetched her here, but I can't make women out, and I don't intend to try. Life is too short. When I get bothered about what a woman's going to do or not do I want to get blind, staving drunk; it always has that effect on me, and you know I'm inclined to sobriety."

"The trouble is, I don't know whether I'm welcome or not," Long declared, grimly. "I have never felt exactly that way before. Do you reckon she'd look with favor on the invite to dinner at the hotel?"

"You bet she will!" Henley was more sure of his ground now. "Cooking and fixing up the table is a woman's joy, and they'll go just to see what hotel fare is like, and, as a rule, they will sample every article that's passed."

"Well, I'll risk it on your judgment, Alf. You've stood by me so far like a man and a brother, and I don't believe you'd set a trap for me to tumble in."

"Not me," answered Henley. "But I was wondering what you think of her looks; men differ in tastes, and—"

"Shucks!" Long sniffed. "You needn't ask me that. That'ud be a fool question for a blind man to ask. Why, Alf, she is the stunningest trick that ever wore shoe-leather. She's so dadblamed purty I can't look her straight in the face. There is some'n in her eyes and the way she sets and bends her neck an' cocks 'er head that makes me feel like one of the chaps in olden times that knelt on a strip of carpet at a queen's throne. But it ain't just her looks and trim shape and nobby little feet—it's the woman herself, by gosh! She looks clean through a feller; what she says goes from her as straight as a gun-shot. Well, I'll hurry back and do the best I can. I'm having a big time, Alf—a big, roaring time."

All the rest of the morning, as he strolled here and there through the merry assemblage, Henley managed to keep the pair in sight. Long kept the same position, his right foot on the hub of the wheel, his face upturned to Dixie's. It was the passing of the local military company and the surging of the spectators forward that gave Long a valuable opportunity, for he got into the buggy and sat beside the girl. Henley could see him lashing the air over the dashboard with his whip in a most reckless manner.

"The blame fool!" Henley ejaculated. "He's wearing out that whip. I wonder if he thinks I buy the best whalebone for him to court with. She'd like 'im better if he'd set still, anyway, and not be cavorting about like a jumping-jack."

Noon came, and Henley saw the pair alight from the buggy and walk across to the hotel. Thereupon he betook himself to the house of his friends, and had his own dinner. When it was time to start home he went down to the wagon-yard. He found them seated in the buggy, and, to his surprise, he saw nothing in the manner of either to indicate that any sort of understanding had been reached.

"I reckon it's time we was on the way," Henley announced to her, as he shaded his eyes and glanced at the declining sun.

"Yes, it's high time," Dixie answered, crisply. "I was wondering where on earth you was. I'll have to pay for this jaunt, and the sooner I set in to my work at home the better it will be for me."

Long made elaborate excuses to Dixie for absenting himself, and followed Henley to where his horse was hitched.

"Well," said Henley, as he was putting the collar on the animal, "how did you make out?"

"I hardly know, Alf." Long looked very grave. "There is no use saying she is exactly the thing I am looking for, but, as much as I've seen of her to-day, I don't know any more'n a rabbit what my showing is. She ain't a bit like these town-women; you can sorter get at them, for they are on the carpet, and they don't make no beans about it. But this un has a way of making you watch every step you take and every word you speak. I've been in the habit of having women folks listen to all I say, and laugh hearty now and then, but this un has her eyes on everything that is passing, and seems to me to laugh at the wrong time, when there ain't the slightest call for amusement. I reckon maybe I'd have made more progress if we'd been where thar wasn't so much to attract her attention. I don't know—I'm just guessing. But I'm game to the backbone, Alf, and I'm in the race. You hear me? I'm in to stay."

"That's the way to talk," Henley agreed. "A woman that ain't hard to win ain't worth having. These town-gals are after your money; it is my opinion that this one will have to like you a powerful lot before she gives up her freedom."

"She's as independent as a hog on ice." Long smiled, but not at his simile. "I hardly knowed what to do when we got to the hotel. I thought she was accepting my invite, you see, when, lo and behold, at settling time she drawed out her money and insisted on planking down her part to a fraction of a cent. I argued as strong as I knowed how agin it, but nothing would do her but to pay her way. I feel mean about that, Alf. What would you have done?"

"Why, it's the part of a gentleman to let a lady have her way in every single thing," Henley opined. "If she asks you to get her a drink of water, she wants it; and if she asks to pay her bill at a hotel, she wants that; to accuse her of anything else would be prying into her private matters. If she didn't want to eat at your expense the first day she was throwed with you—well, that was her business. I think it is spunky, myself. I reckon you didn't come right out and talk marrying?" Henley ended with a rather anxious look at his friend.

"No, Alf, I was afraid to—I don't know why, but, as much as I wanted to ease my mind on the matter, I just couldn't get it out. It seemed to lodge in my throat; in fact, I was scared half the time. Every time I'd say a thing, no matter how little, I'd wonder if it injured my case or not. Alf, I'm a goner—a clean goner. I'll never have a minute's peace till she's mine. It's going to be slow work. I asked her if I couldn't drive out to see her next Sunday, but she wouldn't hear to it. She finally said I could come on the first Sunday of next month to hear a brag preacher that is billed to appear for the first time on that date. It's a dern long time to wait, but she's laid down the law, and I'll have to obey it."

During the drive home Dixie seemed wilfully uncommunicative, and she and Henley were silent most of the way. As they were on the brow of the hill overlooking Chester, however, she drew a deep breath and said: "Well, Alfred, I certainly had a bang-up time. Carrie Wade may make her brags of how she runs things, but I certainly had a rip-roaring time."

"But," ventured Henley, his eyes on the jostling back of his horse, "from what Long intimated—at least from what he hinted—it appears that you and him didn't come to any, that is to say, any positive agreement."

The girl laughed heartily, covering her face with both hands, and bent downward.

"You men are so silly, Alfred. You want an important thing like that to be over in a minute, while a woman—a woman naturally would like for it to last. If that fellow could insure me, in some shape or other, that he'd keep acting and talking like he did to-day, after we was married, I'd be more interested than I am. But hot-headed ones like him cool down about as quick as they get het up. As a general thing the marriage altar seems to rest on a big cake of ice, and overheated couples catch colds that make 'em sniff the rest of their lives."

"I've been waiting to hear you say how he—what you thought of Long's looks," stammered the match-maker; "that always seems the main thing in—in a deal o' this sort."

"Well," she chuckled, "I'm better at making rag-dolls than men, but if men-making was my trade I think I could have turned out a better job than Long. Folks say that to be wide betwixt the eyes shows sense. That may be so up to certain limits, but I'm afraid his are entirely too far apart. Why, when you set close to him you can't see both of 'em at the same time; you have to look first at one and then at the other. I tried to get around the trouble by looking at his nose, but that seemed to be crooked and awful flat. I didn't like them long hairs on his hands; his forefathers must have lived in a cold climate."

"The hairs don't mean nothing." Henley was amused, in spite of his loyalty to his friend. "A heap of men are that way."

"You ain't." Dixie glanced at the rather slender hands of her companion, and then lifted her eyes to his face slowly and studiously. "You haven't got a big chunk of a head, either, and flopping, fuzzy ears, and, above all, Alfred, you ain't dead stuck on yourself. If I marry that man it will be after I've taken him down several pegs. His vanity fairly leaks out of him and stands in a puddle at his feet. Well, that don't matter. When he comes to take me to meeting it will be the talk of the entire community. Carrie Wade will laugh on the other side of her face. I would have let him come earlier, but I want to take plenty of time to make me a dandy dress and get me a new hat. I'm going to cut a wide swath. That's to be my one big day of triumph and getting even."



CHAPTER XX

It was after nightfall when Henley put Dixie down at the cottage and drove around to his barn. In the stable doorway lurked a shadow of uncertain shape and quite motionless. It turned out to be the form of Jason Wrinkle. The pipe in his mouth glowed like a speeding firefly as he stepped down to the buggy.

"Hello! Well," he muttered, with a low, significant laugh, "you've come back—reports notwithstanding to the contrary, female, legal, or otherwise."

"Yes, I'm back," Henley said, rather curtly. "Anything strange about it?"

"Well, I was just wonderin'. Huh, in this day and time of new-fangled ways and doin's a body never knows what will happen. You'll certainly never know if you listen to talk." Wrinkle peered into the face of his stepson-in-law quite studiously for a moment, and with no little irritation Henley unfastened the hamestring with a downward jerk and began to remove the harness.

"What's the matter with you, anyway?" he asked. "Are you up to another one of your infernal jokes?"

"No, I hain't," Wrinkle puffed. "That one about the baby was my last one—on you, anyway. You took it like some old, peevish man, and sulked and looked crooked for a week. I've tried to study out just how that happened to go agin the grain so mighty awful, but I'm up agin a snag. No, Alf, you make the bread-and-butter for this shebang, and you work better when you hain't plagued. This time I come as a friend, and maybe adviser—I don't know, it is all owin' to how you'll feel about it. For all I know to the contrary, you may be as innocent as snow that hain't been walked on, and, if you are, you ought to know what is going on behind your back."

"Behind my back?" Henley jerked the words from him as he tossed the harness into the buggy and allowed his horse to find his stall unguided. "Well, what's going on behind my back?"

Wrinkle sucked audibly at the stem of his pipe before he delivered himself into the eager expectancy that was massed between him and his companion. "Alf," he began, finally, "you've dealt with humanity, in one shape and another, enough to know that this is a sort of hide-bound community, and, well, you driv' off this mornin' with a good-lookin' young woman, didn't you?"

"Of course I did!" Henley retorted. "What of that?"

"You went toward Carlton, didn't you?"

"I went to Carlton," Henley answered, restraining an outburst with difficulty. "I took Miss Dixie over on—on business. It was transacted, and—"

"You didn't tell Hettie whar you was bound for?"

"I didn't, because I didn't think it made any difference. She's never interested in what I do or where I go, and there was no reason for telling her."

"Maybe not—maybe not," Wrinkle answered, aimlessly, "but it wouldn't 'a' done yore case any harm if you had sorter tetched on it before startin' out. You see, Carrie Wade sa'ntered over about eleven o'clock. She hain't been a constant visitor at our house, and as she had a kind o' fidgety walk on her, an' a curious dazzle in her eyes, I knowed she hadn't come to see the pattern of the new quilt as she claimed, and so, bein' a friend of yourn, I set down at the window and listened, wonderin' when she'd quit her eternal preamble an' git down to business. Purty soon I knowed land was in sight, for she said, like she was in a sort of a dream, for she wasn't lookin' at anybody in particular—she said: 'I seed Dixie Hart an' Alfred drivin' off this mornin'. They was headed fer Saunder's Spring, at the foot o' the mountain. She had on her best duds (which ain't sayin' much)'—them was Carrie's words, not mine—'an' a whoppin' big picnic basket full o' good things. That girl will do to watch, Mrs. Henley. As they passed our house the reins was lyin' loose in the buggy, an' Dixie was leanin' agin Alfred like a sick kitten to a hot brick.' It was the fust Hettie had heard of the scrape—the trip, I mean—and I thought she'd flare up, or wilt, or some'n or other, but she was on the job as quick as a flash. On my soul, I don't believe old Het so much as batted her eye, though the revelation must have been as sudden as a mule-kick in the ribs. She give the quilt she was showin' a pull agin the frame like she wanted to straighten out the stitches, an' said, 'Yes, Alf give 'er a lift over to Carlton. I'm awfully glad he had company.' And on that she axed Carrie how her Ma's sore foot was, an' recommended Dr. Stone's hoss liniment, an' cited a good many cases where cures to both man an' beast had been made at a small outlay.

"But Carrie Wade wasn't thar to l'arn how to doctor sore feet. She leaned back in her chair and laffed; you could 'a' heard her this far if you'd 'a' been here an' the pig was asleep. She riz and went and slapped Hettie on the back and said:

'You watch my words, Mrs. Henley, thar's goin' to be talk, an' lots of it. Dixie Hart has got tired o' bein' out o' the ring of young folks, an' is bent on gittin' attention by fair means or foul. Alf's good-lookin', plenty young, an' she's deliberately cuttin' her eyes at 'im. I've heard she goes to the store when she don't need a thing, an' that they sa'nter home together through the woods.'"

"The trifling hussy!" Henley muttered, angrily. "I thought she was a meddlesome busybody, and now I know it."

"Well, you know Hettie don't smile more 'n once a year," Wrinkle tittered, "but this was her anniversary. She was actually one broad grin from ear to ear."

"'I wish somebody would stir Alf up a little bit,' she said. 'He's entirely too poky. Carrie, that man is the slowest stick that ever lived. I wish some pretty, dashin' gal like Dixie Hart would flirt with him good and hard. If you wasn't so old I'd git you to do it. My first husband was different; he was a great ladies' man. That is the only thing that will make married life bearable. A dead certainty in love-matters is killin.'"

"Good!" Henley chuckled. "Hettie saw through her, and headed her off in fine style."

"Well, 'out of the heart the mouth speaketh,'" quoted Jason. "And the truth is, Alf, I railly don't think Hettie would care a hill o' beans if you did sort o' prove that you was up to snuff. You ort to profit by what's gone before in matrimony as you have in tradin' amongst men. Dick, when all is said an' done, was her maiden choice, an' if thar ever was a woman roustabout, a feller that had a bow and a scrape for every pair o' bright eyes that come his way, that feller was Dick Wrinkle. He kept Hettie in hot water, and I don't know but what the cold bath you've giv' 'er has sort o' gone agin her constitution. She's a critter that likes what she can't git better 'n what lies right at hand wigglin' to attract attention. No, you needn't be afeard of any family row. The truth is, I think Hettie is some better pleased than she has been for a long time. I reckon she's beginnin' to feel a sort o' pride in you. It ain't from her that you'll have trouble, but from Carrie Wade."

"Trouble, how?" Henley asked, impatiently, as he was turning toward the lights in the farm-house.

"Why, from her clatterin' tongue. If she'll talk like that to us, you know she will about town, and it takes a powerful small spark to set a haystack of scandal afire. Folks think Hettie has driv' you pretty far, anyway, with her odd, graveyard notions, and it wouldn't take much to—to start a ugly report."

Henley furiously tore himself from the old gossip and went into the house. As he paused at the water-shelf and filled a basin to wash the dust of his drive from his face and hands, he saw his wife moving about in the dimly lighted kitchen, and was struck by her easy and obviously gratified bearing. He was drying his hands on a towel which hung from a roller on the wall when Mrs. Wrinkle came out and suddenly faced him. She caught her breath, stared in surprise for a moment, then turned into the kitchen. Henley saw her clutch his wife's sleeve and give it a warning pull. She meant to speak in an undertone, but her piping voice slipped a cog and Henley heard her say:

"They didn't run off; he's back! He's out thar wash—"

"Sh!" came from Mrs. Henley's lips. "Be quiet; you don't know what you are talking about."

"Why, Carrie Wade said him an' Dixie Hart had 'loped away, an'—"

"Didn't I tell you to hush?" Mrs. Henley commanded, in a guarded tone. "You go set down and be quiet for once in your life. You've said enough about this thing."

Henley saw the old woman stand staring blankly for a moment, and then she came back to him in the half-darkness and stood mutely eying him from beneath the black poke-bonnet. Leaving her, he went into the dining-room, where a lamp was shedding yellow rays over the meal his wife had ready for him. He sat down in his accustomed place, and Mrs. Henley promptly brought his coffee.

"It must have been powerful hot on the Carlton road," she said. "We mighty nigh melted here in the shade with every window and door wide open."

"It wasn't so much hotter than common." He put sugar into his coffee, and slowly stirred it. "I reckon moving at a brisk pace through the air keeps you from feeling heat as much as you would if you was setting still. We didn't start back till toward sundown."

"They had some sort of a celebration over there, didn't they?" Mrs. Henley reached over and pushed the biscuits nearer to his plate.

"Yes, but it didn't amount to much."

"I reckon Dixie liked it. The poor girl hain't been away often."

"I think she did," Henley said. "Anyways, she acted that way all through. She had a tiptop seat in my buggy, where she could catch first sight of everything that happened, and she took it all in, every speck of it, even a good dinner at the hotel."

"Oh, I see." Mrs. Henley's brow was furrowed in perplexity. She left the room and returned in a moment with a bowl in her thin hands. "Here is some fresh apple-butter; it's right from the spring. You can put rich milk on it; there's plenty just from the cow."

The wrinkle remained on her brow while he helped himself liberally. She stood and studied his profile from the lighted side. The best reader of her facial expression in the family, had he been a witness, and he doubtless was, as the windows were open, would have found much to rivet his attention in the unwonted solidity of her features. Henley ate silently for several minutes before she spoke again. Then she cleared her voice, drew herself up more erectly, and said:

"You say Dixie set in the buggy all the time? Why, I had an idea from something Pa dropped that she went over there to attend to some er—business or other."

"Well, a body might attend to business setting in a buggy," he said, ambiguously and he put a spoonful of apple-butter into a broad smile and swallowed both as he looked at her with twinkling eyes.

The furrows deepened on the austere brow of the woman, and she drew her under lip inward and pressed it between her teeth.

"I don't know exactly what you mean," she said, presently. "I supposed she had things to buy for her farm, or—"

Henley laughed. "I may as well tell you the secret, Hettie. You ain't any hand to gad about and talk, and I know it will be safe with you. The truth, is I'm a match-maker. You've heard me speak of Jasper Long? Well, he's dying to get married, and I've been a sort o' go-between with him and Dixie. He wanted to meet her, and I took her over, and—"

"Oh!" The furrows were gone, the colorless face lighted up from within. "I understand now." She walked round the table and leaned over the dishes toward him and laughed. "Alfred," she tittered, "you certainly are the most goody-goody old poke of a stick that ever wore man's clothes, and you are blind, blind as a day-old kitten. You know men, all grades and styles of 'em, but you are a born fool when it comes to women. When that girl marries Jasper Long—I say, when Dixie Hart takes him, let me know, will you?" and she turned from the room, leaving him more than convinced that he didn't understand women, and certain that he never should try to do so again.



CHAPTER XXI

One morning, in the early part of the following week, as Henley sat working at his desk in the store, and Pomp and Cahews were busy attending three or four elderly women in front, he became conscious that some one was speaking in loud, angry tones near the door. And, rising, that he might look over a stack of soap-boxes which obstructed his view, he saw that a dispute of some sort was taking place between Cahews and Hank Bradley over some cigars that the latter had failed to pay for on a former occasion. Bradley was evidently under the influence of liquor, and he began to swear loudly and threateningly. The women dropped the purchases they were making and shrank back farther into the store.

With a flush of anger over the insult to his house and customers, Henley strode hotly forward and thrust himself between the disputants.

"We'll talk about the account some other time," he said, glaring into Bradley's face. "But right now you get out of this house. You sha'n't stand here spouting vile oaths before these ladies."

"What have you got to do with it?" Bradley flared up in his turn, and he whipped his hand back toward his pistol-pocket, only to discover that he was not armed, as he evidently thought he was. However, he kept his hand behind him in a threatening attitude.

"I'll show you what I've got to do with it if you open your dirty jaws like that again!" Henley said, fearlessly. "You dare to draw a gun on me and I'll make you swallow your own teeth. Now, you get out of here!" And, taking him by the arm in a grip of steel, Henley drew him hurriedly to the door and shoved him down the steps.

"This ain't the end of it," Bradley threw back furiously. "You bet it ain't."

"It'll be the end o' you if you fool with me!" Henley retorted, and he turned back into the store and resumed his seat at his desk. He had not been there long when one of the women finished her purchases and, with some parcels under her arm, came back and stood timidly by his desk. It was Mrs. Cartwright, the old widow whose son Johnny was so devoted to Carrie Wade. She was short in stature, had iron-gray hair, was slight and stooped, and wore a plain gingham dress and a sunbonnet of the same material.

"It was powerful good of you, Alfred, to do what you did jest now," she said, timidly, as he looked up. "It was like the old-time way men had when I was a girl of takin' up for women. I always heard you was good and kind, and now I know it. A man kin do a lot o' things that women will appreciate, but I'll risk my all that every woman in that bunch down thar will go home wishin' that her husband or brother had done what you did an' in the same sperit. Women love, above all things, to be protected by manly men."

"Well," said Henley, his flush of anger giving way to one of genuine embarrassment, "he was upsetting business, Mrs. Cartwright. I hated to—to git mad that way, but he was running my trade away, and that's a thing I won't let no man do right under my eyes. Set down an' rest, Mrs. Cartwright; you don't look overly stout."

The woman took the chair near his desk, and he heard her sigh as she massed her parcels in her lap with her thin, quivering hands.

"I reckon I don't look well," she said, seeing that his kindly eyes were still on her. "They say worry will kill a body quicker 'n anything else, and, Alfred, I'm worried mighty nigh to death. I don't know which way to turn or what to do. It is all about my youngest child, Johnny. He's took a quar notion to marry Carrie Wade."

"I see, I see," Henley said, sympathetically; "and that's bad. Why, he's hardly out o' the spelling-book class, and hain't a sign of fuzz on his lip. The last time he was in here I know the crowd was teasing him because his voice was in the gosling stage. It had sech a funny way of wobbling about from bass to treble."

"But he thinks he's full grown," the woman sighed, "and won't listen to reason. He keeps declarin' he's older than the way it's recorded in the Bible. This last trouble begun at the Sunday-school Christmas-tree, when Carrie put on an embroidered handkerchief for him. That turned his head, and he hain't hardly let her out of his sight sence. He growed from child to man betwixt two suns."

"They'll do that sometimes," Henley said. "It is surely an odd sort of attachment. She is plenty old to have nursed him. I wouldn't be afraid to say that she was cutting her eyes at men when he was cutting his teeth. Thinking of that ud make some fellers ashamed to act that way, but as apt as not Johnny don't let himself study about it. Somehow I can excuse it better in the boy than in her, because she's old enough to know better."

The old woman nodded and sighed again. "Alfred, sometimes I think I've had more put on me than my share in this world. I've had three sons besides this un, and every last one of 'em give me trouble along at Johnny's age."

"And about women older 'n they was, too, I've heard," Henley said.

"Yes, it looks like it runs in the blood—not in mine, thank the Lord! for I wish nary woman had ever been made; yes, all of my boys no sooner got out o' frocks than they made a dead-run for the first old maid in sight, and marry they would in spite of all possessed."

"And not one got hitched up exactly right," said Henley.

"Not one, Alfred. The two oldest stuck to their hot-headed agreement long enough to feel sort o' tied down, and they went clean off an' left their wives high and dry. Jim is still living with his'n, but I cry my eyes out every time I see the pore fellow. Looks like he hain't got a thing to live for. When a man leaves his own fireside and comes and sets around his mammy's house like Jim does, he hain't got no paradise under his own roof. Ef he'd 'a' had children it mought 'a' been different. I did think I could show Johnny the mistakes of his brothers and make him act different. I've talked it to him sence he was old enough to know right from wrong, but you see how little weight it had."

"Why don't you go to headquarters and call a halt?" Henley's indignation was rising.

"You mean to Carrie? Well, I did, but somehow she manages to git around the question. She jest looks kind o' 'shamed and keeps wanting to talk about other things. I ought to be sorry for her, desperate as she is for attention, but I hain't. She's a tattle-tale and scandalmonger. She never got over losin' that young preacher that Dixie Hart cut her out of, and she spends all her time hammerin' at that pore girl, who is good and decent and noble, if thar ever was sech a thing. Just here lately, because you seed fit to take Dixie with you over to Carlton—"

"Oh, I know—I know." Henley's face grew darker, and he clinched his hand. "I can't think of her bell-clapper tongue without gettin' mad, and I don't like to be that way with a woman. What does Johnny say?"

"Oh, he talks as big as a railroad president; he talks jest the same foolishness as his brothers did; he's doin' the marryin'—nobody else has a'thing to do with it. That's what hurts. If I could jest git the pore, simple boy out of her clutches for a month I believe I could open his eyes, but I am afraid at the slightest move they will run off and git married. Sometimes I try to be resigned and argue to myself that maybe him and her could git along together, but when I see my pore baby-boy with that powdered and painted thing out in public I mighty nigh die with mortification."

"We must simply bust it up, Mrs. Cartwright," Henley said, firmly. "That's all there is about it. We must checkmate 'em. Let me study over it. I'll help if I can."

"I wish you would," the woman said, anxiously. "There he is now in the front-door. I'll slip out the side way; he mought suspicion I was talkin' about him."

A moment after her departure Johnny Cartwright came back to the desk. "Jim said Ma was here," he said, glancing around the room.

"She was, Johnny, boy," Henley said, patronizingly, "but she went home. Ah, ha! I saw you with Carrie Wade the other day—at least it had her look."

"Yes, it was her." A flush of pride rose and spread itself over the boyish face. "I was taking her home from Mrs. Spriggs's quilting."

"I'd bet a hat I know what you wanted to see her about," Henley said, his hand over his facile mouth. "Some of these old bachelors, or widowers with a gang of children to take care of, sent you with some invite or other. When I was a little chap like you I used to pick up a lot o' odd dimes in taking notes to the gals. About ten years from now you'll be spending your money that way. You must hear a lot o' funny things if you see much o' Carrie. I'd give a pretty to be near her when she got word from some man or other. She's waited a long time, Johnny. I reckon a proposal at this late day would tickle her to death."

"I don't tote notes for nobody." The boy was white about the lips, and looking as if he hardly knew whether to be angry or not.

"Well, I reckon you wouldn't to Carrie," Henley said. "I hardly reckon anybody has her in mind, now. You know she's been a drug on the market a long time. I wonder if she ever told you about that tin-peddler? It was away back, I reckon, when you was playing with your rattler. Carrie and the peddler had up an awful case—they was going to get married, and open up a tin-shop at Carlton, but a man come along and said the peddler already had a wife or two to his credit, and the skunk changed his route. Lawsy me! how Carrie did take on! We heard her yelling like a knife was sticking in her clean to the sorgum-mill."

"It's a lie! I don't believe a word of it," the boy cried, his face aflame with fury. "She told me she never had a sweetheart in her life—that she hated men."

"She's had good cause," answered Henley. "A woman that don't get a speck of attention will hate anything. I reckon she's passed the line, and nobody will marry her."

"She's going to marry me," the boy blurted out, leaning over and striking the desk with his fist, as if to emphasize his words, "and when she's my wife I'll call and make you settle for what you've said. Remember that, sir." And he turned and strode angrily from the store.

"I hated to say it," Henley mused, "but I was doing it for the lasting good of all concerned. It won't do—it simply won't do. That meddlesome old maid simply shall not ruin that boy's life and break his old mammy's heart. I wonder—" He sat staring at the floor for several minutes, and then a smile disturbed the stern lines of his face. "It might work—by gum, I'll try it, anyway!"

Glancing down to the front, he saw that Cahews was disengaged and seated on the end of a counter swinging his long legs to and fro. Henley went to him.

"Say, Jim, Johnny Cartwright and Carrie Wade is driving his mammy mighty nigh distracted with their doings. I don't know when I've ever been so sorry for an old person. I wonder if me and you couldn't put our heads together and—and sort o' bust it up."

"Well, I don't know, Alf—you are a better schemer than I am. I'm willin' to help, but I can't git up nothing. If the boy was mine I'd give 'im a good spankin' in public, and maybe that ud shame Carrie into behavin' herself."

"If I could get you to help I think I could work a change in the thing, anyway," Henley said, persuasively.

"Me, Alf?"

"Yes, it's just this way, Jim, with a woman of that brand and vintage," Henley pursued. "You see, she's gone without the right sort of attention so long that she's kind o' lost respect for herself. Jim, you are the leading young man in Chester, not yet married, and considered a fine catch. I don't know how it will strike you, but you could really do a good turn all round if you'd just pay Carrie a little attention. Take her in your new top buggy to camp-meeting next Sunday."

"Me? Oh, Lord!"

"I don't mean for you to marry her," Henley went on, smoothly. "But if I'm any judge of women, I think when a man of your stripe drives out in public with her she'll simply look up again, and, by gum, I believe she'll look clean over that boy's head. I'm asking you to take part in a good deed, Jim."

"I see—I understand pine-blank what you mean, but, Alf, I'm not the man for the job. You'll understand my fix if you'll just study a minute. You know how it is between me and Julia Hardcastle. I'll never marry no other woman as long as the sun shines. She hain't never said the word, nor she hain't plumb pitched me out, either, but she makes me walk a chalk-line. Why, if she was to see me out with Carrie Wade I'd never hear the end of it."

"Julia's going to the camp-meeting, ain't she?" Henley asked, cutting a significant glance at his clerk.

"Yes, she's going with Sam Willis, that Atlanta shoe-drummer. She don't care for him, mind you, Alf, but she likes to have fellows of that sort hanging on. She don't seem half as particular about who she goes with as the company I keep. She's got me where the wool is short, Alf. I wouldn't rub her the wrong way for the world. I hope to get her some day, but I'll have to wait till she gits tired of dashing around."

Henley was looking straight into his clerk's face, a smile twinkling in his kindly eyes. "You are not working that girl right, Jim," he said, decidedly. "She'd have been yours long ago if you'd had more independence. If you keep up that sort of a lick she'll waltz off with some bold and daring chap one of these days and give you the merry ha-ha. The truth is, she wants you, but she wants you to be more of a man. You've tried your sort of way long enough, now switch off and try mine just for one single day, anyway, and see if I ain't right. Solomon himself—and he was the greatest masher in the Bible—even he couldn't win a woman by letting her have her own way. A woman thinks a man is a sissy that gives in to her every whim. You just take Carrie Wade to meeting like any other free-born American citizen has a right to do, and Julia Hardcastle will set up and take notice, and she'll think a sight more of you—that is, if you don't knuckle under and beg her pardon the minute she mentions it to you."

Cahews's jaw was really a massive member, and it looked as solid as stone when he finally answered, which he did when he had stood down on the floor and walked to and fro for a moment in deep and turbulent thought.

"She nor no other woman could make me knuckle if I didn't want to," he said, pausing and resting a steady hand on the shoulder of his employer. "I've been giving in all along, but I'm tired, dang tired. Here she's going with that town-dude Sunday and expects me to drive out there by myself and enjoy the sight from afar. Derned if I don't believe, as you say, that I've been giving that girl too much rein and floundering about too much in the dust at her feet. Alf, I'll write a note to Carrie this minute, and I'll give the old girl a good time if I know how."