"You little coward! Why didn't you meet me?"

She frowned significantly and made warning gestures toward the interior of the room.

At the far window, standing with his back to them, was Mr. Sandy Kilday. He was engaged in a fierce encounter with an unnamed monster whose eyes were green. During his pauses for breath he composed a few comprehensive and scathing remarks which he intended to bestow upon Miss Fenton at his earliest convenience. Fickleness was a thing not to be tolerated. She had confessed her preference for him over all others; she must and should prove it. Just when his indignation had reached the exploding-point, he heard his name called.

"Sandy," cried Annette, "what do you think? Ruth is coming home!

Carter is on his way to the d-depot to meet her now. She's been gone nearly a year. I never was so crazy to see anyb-body in all my life."

Sandy wheeled about. "Which depot?" he cried excitedly; and without apologies or farewell he dashed out of the house and down the street.

When the Pullman train came into the Clayton station, he was leaning against a truck in a pose of studied indifference. Out of the tail of his eye he watched the pa.s.sengers alight.

There were the usual fat women and thin men, tired women with children, and old women with baskets, but no sign of a small girl with curls hanging down her back and dresses to her shoe-tops.

Suddenly he caught his breath. Standing in the car door, like a saint in a niche, was a radiant figure in a blue traveling-suit, with a bit of blue veil floating airily from her hat brim. She was not the little girl he was looking for, but he transferred his devotion at a bound; for long skirts and tucked-up curls rendered her tenfold more worshipful than before.

He watched her descend from her pedestal, bestow an affectionate kiss upon her brother, then look eagerly around for other familiar faces.

In one heart-suspending instant her eyes met his, she hesitated in confusion, then blushed and bowed.

Sandy reeled home in utter intoxication of spirit. Even the town pump wore a halo of glorified rosy mist.

At the gate he met Mrs. Hollis returning from a funeral. With a sudden descent from his ethereal mood he pounced upon her and, in spite of violent protestations, danced her madly down the walk and deposited her breathless upon the milk-bench.

"He's getting worse all the time," she complained to Aunt Melvy, who had watched the performance with great glee.

"Yas,'m," said Aunt Melvy, with a fond look at his retreating figure.

"He's jus' like a' Irish potato: when he ain't powerful cold, he's powerful hot."

CHAPTER XII

ANTIc.i.p.aTION

The day before the fair Sandy employed a subst.i.tute at the post-office, in order to give the entire day to preparation for the festivities to come.

Early in the morning he went to town, where, after much consultation and many changes of mind, he purchased a suit of clothes. Then he rented the town dress-suit, to the chagrin of three other boys who had each counted upon it for the coming hop.

With the precious burden under his arm, Sandy hastened home. He spread the two coats on the bed, placing a white shirt inside each, and a necktie about each collar. Then he stood back and admired.

"It's meself I can see in them both this minute!" he exclaimed with delight.

His shoes were polished until they were resplendent, but they lost much of their glory during subsequent practising of steps before the mirror. He even brushed and cleaned his old clothes, for he foresaw the pain of laying aside the raiment of Solomon for dingy every-day garments.

Toward noon he went down-stairs to continue his zealous efforts in the kitchen. This met with Aunt Melvy's instant disapproval.

"For mercy sake, git out ob my way!" she cried, as she squeezed past the ironing-board to get to the stove. "I'll press yer pants, ef you'll jus' take yourself outen de kitchen. Be sure don't burn 'em?

Look a-heah, chile; I was pressin' pants 'fore yer paw was wearin'

'em!"

Aunt Melvy's temper was a thing not to be trifled with when a "protracted meeting" was in session. For years she had been the black sheep in the spiritual fold. Her earnest desire to get religion and the untiring efforts of the exhorters had alike proved futile. Year after year she sat on the mourners' bench, seeking the light and failing each time to "come th'u'."

This discouraging condition of affairs sorely afflicted her, and produced a kind of equinoctial agitation in the Hollis kitchen.

Sandy went on into the dining-room, but he found no welcome there.

Mrs. Hollis was submerged in pastry. The county fair was her one dissipation, and her highest ambition was to take premiums. Every year she sent forth battalions of cakes, pies, sweet pickles, beaten biscuit, crocheted doilies, and crazy-quilts to capture the blue ribbon.

"Don't put the window up!" she warned Sandy. "I know it's stifling, but I can't have the dust coming in. Why don't you go on in the house?"

Mrs. Hollis always spoke of the kitchen and dining-room as if they were not a part of the house.

"Can't ye tell me something that's good for the sunburn?" asked Sandy, anxiously. "It's a dressed-up shooting-cracker I'll be resembling the morrow, in spite of me fine clothes."

"b.u.t.termilk and lemon-juice," recommended Mrs. Hollis, as she placed the last marshmallow on the roof of a four-story cake.

Sandy would have endured any discomfort that day in order to add one charm to his personal appearance. He used so many lemons there were none left for the judge's lemonade when he came home for dinner.

"Just home from the post-office?" he asked when he saw Sandy enter the dining-room with his hat on.

"Jimmy Reed's doing my work to-day," Sandy said apologetically. "And if you please, sir, I'll be keeping my hat on. I have just washed my hair, and I want it to dry straight."

The judge looked at the suspicious turn of the thick locks around the brim of the stiff hat and smiled.

"Vanitas vanitatum, et omnia vanitas," he quoted. "How many pages of Blackstone to-day?"

Sandy made a wry face and winked at Mrs. Hollis, but she betrayed him.

"He has been primping since sun-up," she said. "Anybody would think he was going to get married."

"Sweet good luck if I was!" cried Sandy, gaily.

The judge put down his fork and laid his hand on Sandy's arm. "You mustn't neglect the learning, Sandy. You've made fine progress, and I'm proud of you. You've worked your way this far; I'll help you to the top if you'll keep a steady head."

"That I'll do," cried Sandy, grasping his hand. "It's old Moseley's promise I have for steady work at the academy. If I can't climb the ladder, with you at one end and success at the other, then I'm not much of a chicken--I mean I'm not much."

"Well, you better begin by leaving the girls alone," said Mrs. Hollis as she moved the sugar out of his reach. "Just let one drive by the gate, and we don't have any peace until you know who it is."

"By the way," said the judge, as he helped himself to a corn-dodger and two kinds of preserves, "I'm sorry to see the friendship that's sprung up between Annette Fenton and young Nelson. I don't know what the doctor's thinking about to let it go on. Nelson is. .h.i.tting a pretty lively pace for a youngster. He'll never live to reap his wild oats, though. He came into the world with consumption, and I don't think he will be long getting out of it. He's always getting into difficulty. I have had to fine him twice in the past month for gambling. Do you see anything of him, Sandy?"

"No," said Sandy, biting his lip. His pride had suffered more than once at Carter's condescension.

"Martha Meech must be worse," said Mrs. Hollis. "The up-stairs blinds have been closed all day."

Sandy pushed back the apple-dumpling which Aunt Melvy had made at his special request.

"Perhaps I can be helping them," he said as he rose from the table.