LITMIR.BIZ

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schoolma'am was addicted to coon songs of the period.

      She seemed to be very busy about something and Weary, craning his neck to see over her shoulder, wondered what. Also, he wished he knew what she was thinking about, and he hoped her thoughts were not remote from himself. Just then Glory showed unmistakable and malicious intentions of sneezing, and Weary, catching a glimpse of something in Miss Satterly's hand, hastened to make his presence known.

      "I hope yuh aren't limbering up that weapon of destruction on my account, Schoolma'am," he observed mildly.

      The schoolma'am jumped and slid something out of sight under her ruffled, white apron. "Weary Davidson, how long have you been standing there? I believe you'd come straight down from the sky or straight up from the ground, if you could manage it. You seem capable of doing everything except coming by the trail like a sensible man." This with severity.

      Weary swung a long leg over Glory's back and came lightly to earth, immediately taking possession of the vacant half of doorstep. The schoolma'am obligingly drew skirts aside to make room for him—an inconsistent movement not at all in harmony with her eyebrows, which were disapproving.

      "Yuh don't like ordinary men. Yuh said so, once when I said I was just a plain, ordinary man. I've sworn off being ordinary since yuh gave me that tip," he said cheerfully. "Let's have a look at that cannon you're hiding under your apron. Where did yuh resurrect it? Out of some old Indian grave?

      "Mamma! It won't go off sudden and unexpected, will it? What kind uh shells—oh, mamma!" He pushed his hat back off his forehead with a gesture not left behind with his boyhood, held the object the length of his long arm away and regarded it gravely.

      It was an old, old "bull-dog" revolver, freckled with rust until it bore a strong resemblance to certain noses which Miss Satterly looked down upon daily. The cylinder was plugged with rolls of drab cotton cloth, supposedly in imitation of real bullets. It was obviously during the plugging process that Miss Satterly had been interrupted, for a drab string hung limply from one hole. On the whole, the thing did not look particularly formidable, and Weary's lips twitched.

      "A tramp stopped here the other day, and—I was frightened a little," she was explaining, pink-cheeked. "So aunt Meeker found this up in the loft and she thought it would do to—to bluff with."

      Weary aimed carefully at a venturesome and highly inquisitive gopher and pulled, with some effort, the rusted trigger. The gopher stood upon his hind feet and chipped derisively.

      "You see, it just insults him. Yuh could'nt scare a blind man with it—Look here! If yuh go pouting up your lips like that again, something's going to happen 'em. There's a limit to what a man can stand."

      Miss Satterly hastily drew her mouth into a thin, untempting, red streak, for she had not seen Weary Davidson, on an average, twice a week for the last four months for nothing. He was not the man to bluff.

      "Of course," she said resentfully, "you can make fun of it—but all the same, it's better than nothing. It answers the purpose."

      Weary turned his head till he could look straight into her eyes—a thing he seemed rather fond of doing, lately. "What purpose? It sure isn't ornamental; it's a little the hardest looker I ever saw in the shape of a gun. And it won't scare anything. If you want a gun, why, take one that can make good. You can have mine; just watch what a different effect it has."

      He reached backward and drew a shining thing from his pocket, flipped it downward—and the effect was unmistakably different. The gopher leaped and rolled backward and then lay still, and Miss Satterly gave a little, startled scream and jumped quite off the doorstep.

      "Don't yuh see? You couldn't raise any such a dust with yours. If yuh pack a gun, you always want to pack one that's ready and willing to do business on short notice. I'll let yuh have this, if you're sure it's safe with yuh. I'd hate to have you shooting yourself accidental."

      Weary raised innocent eyes to her face and polished the gun caressingly with his handkerchief. "Try it once," he urged.

      The schoolma'am was fond of boasting that she never screamed at anything. She had screamed just now, over a foolish little thing, and it goes without saying she was angry with the cause. She did not sit down again beside him, and she did not take the gun he was holding up invitingly to her. She put her hands behind her and stood accusingly before him with the look upon her face which never failed to make sundry small Beckmans and Pilgreens squirm on their benches when she assumed it in school.

      "Mr. Davidson"—not Weary Davidson, as she was wont to call him—"you have killed my pet gopher. All summer I have fed him, and he would eat out of my hand."

      Weary cast a jealous eye upon the limp, little animal, searched his heart for remorse and found none. Ornery little brute, to get familiar with his schoolma'am!

      "I did not think you could be so wantonly cruel, and I am astonished and—and deeply pained to discover that fatal flaw in your character."

      Weary began to squirm, after the manner of delinquent Beckmans and Pilgreens. One thing he had learned: When the schoolma'am rose to irreproachable English, there was trouble a-brew. It was a sign he had never known to fail.

      "I cannot understand the depraved instinct which prompts a man brutally to destroy a life he cannot restore, and which in no way menaces his own—or even interferes with his comfort. You may apologize to me; you may even be sincerely repentant"—the schoolma'am's tone at this point implied considerable doubt—"but you are powerless to return the life you have so heedlessly taken. You have revealed a low, brutal trait which I had hoped your nature could not harbor, and I am—am deeply shocked and—and grieved."

      Just here a tiny, dry-weather whirlwind swept around the corner, caught ruffled, white apron and blue skirt in its gyrations and, pushing them wickedly aside, gave Weary a brief, delicious glimpse of two small, slippered feet and two distracting ankles. The schoolma'am blushed and retreated to the doorstep, but she did not sit down. She still stood straight and displeased beside him. Evidently she was still shocked and grieved.

      Weary tipped his head to one side so that be might look up at her from under his hat-brim. "I'll get yuh another gopher; six, if yuh say so," he soothed, "The woods is full of 'em."

      The angry, brown eyes of Miss Satterly swept the barren hills contemptuously. She would not even look at him. "Pray do not inconvenience yourself, Mr. Davidson. It is not the gopher that I care for so much—it is the principle."

      Weary sighed and slid the gun back into his pocket. It seemed to him that Miss Satterly, adorable as she always was, was also rather unreasonable at times. "All right, I'll get yuh another principle, then."

      "Mr. Davidson," she said sternly, "you are perfectly odious!"

      "Is that something nice, Girlie?" Weary smiled trustfully up at her.

      "Odious," explained the schoolma'am haughtily, "is not something nice. I'm sorry your education has been so neglected. Odious, Mr. Davidson, is a synonym for hateful, obnoxious, repulsive, disagreeable, despicable—"

      "I never did like cinnamon, anyhow," put in Weary, cheerfully.

      "I did not mention cinnamon. I said—"

      "Say, yuh look out uh sight with your hair fixed that way. I wish you'd wear it like that all the time," he observed irrelevantly, looking up at her with his sunniest smile.

      "I wish to goodness I were really out of sight," snapped the schoolma'am. "You make me exceedingly weary."

      "Mrs. Weary," corrected he, complacently. "That's what I'm sure aiming at."

      "You aim wide of the mark, then," she retorted valiantly, though confusion waved a red flag in either cheek.

      "Oh, I don't know. A minute ago you were roasting me because my aim was too good," he contended mildly, glancing involuntarily toward the gopher stretched upon its little, yellow back, its four small feet turned pitifully up to the blue.

      "If you had an atom of decency you'd

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