A window in the next house was opened, a head put out, and this occasioned my presentation to both ladies. They were Mrs. Mattern and Mrs. Jeffries, and they fell instantly into a stiff caution of deportment; but they speedily found I was not worth being cautious over. Stuart whispered to me that they were widows of high standing, and mothers of competing favorites for the elocution prize; and I hastened to court their esteem. Mrs. Mattern was in body more ample, standing high and yellow and fluffy; but Mrs. Jeffries was smooth and small, and behind her spectacles she had an eye.

"You must not let us interrupt you, ladies," said I, after some civilities. "Did I understand that something was to be carried somewhere?"

"You did," said Mrs. Jeffries (she had come out of her house); "and I am pleased to notice no damage has been done to our fence--this time."

"It would have been fixed right up at my expense, as always, Mrs.

Jeffries," retorted her neighbor, and started to keep abreast of Mrs.

Jeffries as that lady walked and inspected the fence. Thus the two marched parallel along the frontier to the rear of their respective territories.

"You'll not resign?" said Stuart to me. "It is 'yours till death,' ain't it?"

I told him that it was.

"About once a month I can expect this," said Mrs. Jeffries, returning along her frontier.

"Well, it's not the only case in Sharon, Mrs. Jeffries," said Mrs.

Mattern. "I'll remind you of them three coops when you kept poultry, and they got away across the railroad, along with the barber's shop."

"But cannot we help you get it out?" said I, with a zealous wish for peace.

"You are very accommodating, sir," said Mrs. Mattern.

"One of the prize-awarding committee," said Stuart. "An elegant judge of oratory. Has decided many contests at Concord, the home of Emerson."

"Concord, New Hampshire," I corrected; but neither lady heard me.

"How splendid for Leola!" cried Mrs. Mattern, instantly. "Leola! Oh, Leola! Come right out here!"

Mrs. Jeffries has been more prompt. She was already in her house, and now came from it, bringing a pleasant-looking boy of sixteen, it might be. The youth grinned at me as he stood awkwardly, brought in shirtsleeves from the performance of some household work.

"This is Guy," said his mother. "Guy took the prize last year. Guy hopes--"

"Shut up, mother," said Guy, with entire sweetness. "I don't hope twice--"

"Twice or a dozen times should raise no hard feelings if my son is Sharon's best speaker," cried Mrs. Jeffries, and looked across the fence viciously.

"Shut up, mother; I ain't," said Guy.

"He is a master of humor recitations," his mother now said to me.

"Perhaps you know, or perhaps you do not know, how high up that is reckoned."

"Why, mother, Leola can speak all around me. She can," Guy added to me, nodding his head confidentially.

I did not believe him, I think because I preferred his name to that of Leola.

"Leola will study in Paris, France," announced Mrs. Mattern, arriving with her child. "She has no advantages here. This is the gentleman, Leola."

But before I had more than noted a dark-eyed maiden who would not look at me, but stood in skirts too young for her figure, black stockings, and a dangle of hair that should have been up, her large parent had thrust into my hand a scrap-book.

"Here is what the Santa Fe Observer says;" and when I would have read, she read aloud for me. "The next is the Los Angeles Christian Home. And here's what they wrote about her in El Paso: 'Her histrionic genius for one so young'--it commences below that picture. That's Leola." I now recognized the black stockings and the hair. "Here's what a literary lady in Lordsburg thinks," pursued Mrs. Mattern.

"Never mind that," murmured Leola.

"I shall." And the mother read the letter to me. "Leola has spoke in five cultured cities," she went on. "Arvasita can depict how she was encored at Albuquerque last Easter-Monday."

"Yes, sir, three recalls," said Arvasita, arriving at our group by the fence. An elder sister, she was, evidently. "Are you acquainted with 'Camill'?" she asked me, with a trifle of sternness; and upon my hesitating, "the celebrated French drayma of 'Camill'," she repeated, with a trifle more of sternness. "Camill is the lady in it who dies of consumption. Leola recites the letter-and-coughing scene, Act Third. Mr.

Patterson of Coloraydo Springs pronounces it superior to Modjeska."

"That is Leola again," said Mrs. Mattern, showing me another newspaper cut--hair, stockings, and a candle this time.

"Sleep-walking scene, 'Macbeth,'" said Arvasita. "Leola's great night at the church fair and bazar, El Paso, in Shakespeare's acknowledged masterpiece. Leola's repetwar likewise includes 'Catherine the Queen before her Judges,' 'Quality of Mercy is not Strained,' 'Death of Little Nell,' 'Death of Paul Dombey,' 'Death of the Old Year,' 'Burial of Sir John Moore,' and other standard gems suitable for ladies."

"Leola," said her mother, "recite 'When the British Warrior Queen' to the gentleman."

"No, momma, please not," said Leola, and her voice made me look at her; something of appeal sounded in it.

"Leola is that young you must excuse her," said her mother--and I thought the girl winced.

"Come away, Guy," suddenly snapped little Mrs. Jeffries. "We are wasting the gentleman's time. You are no infant prodigy, and we have no pictures of your calves to show him in the papers."

"Why, mother!" cried the boy, and he gave a brotherly look to Leola.

But the girl, scarlet and upset, now ran inside the house.

"As for wasting time, madam," said I, with indignation, "you are wasting yours in attempting to prejudice the judges."

"There!" said Guy.

"And, Mrs. Mattern," continued, "if I may say so without offense, the age (real or imaginary) of the speakers may make a difference in Albuquerque, but with our committee not the slightest."

"Thank you, I'm sure," said Mrs. Mattern, bridling.

"Eastern ideas are ever welcome in Sharon," said Mrs. Jeffries.

"Good-morning." And she removed Guy and herself into her house, while Mrs. Mattern and Arvasita, stiffly ignoring me, passed into their own door.

"Come have a drink," said Stuart to me. "I am glad you said it. Old Mother Mattern will let down those prodigy skirts. The poor girl has been ashamed of them these two years, but momma has bulldozed her into staying young for stage effect. The girl's not conceited, for a wonder, and she speaks well. It is even betting which of the two widows you have made the maddest."

Close by the saloon we were impeded by a rush of small boys. They ran before and behind us suddenly from barrels and unforeseen places, and wedging and bumping between us, they shouted: "Chicken-legs! Ah, look at the chicken-legs!"

For a sensitive moment I feared they were speaking of me; but the folding slat-doors of the saloon burst open outward, and a giant barkeeper came among the boys and caught and shook them to silence.

"You want to behave," was his single remark; and they dispersed like a Sunday-school.

I did not see why they should thus describe him. He stood and nodded to us, and jerked big thumb towards the departing flock. "Funny how a boy will never think," said he, with amiability. "But they'll grow up to be about as good as the rest of us, I guess. Don't you let them monkey with you, Josey!" he called.

"Naw, I won't," said a voice. I turned and saw, by a barrel, a youth in knee-breeches glowering down the street at his routed enemies. He was possibly eight, and one hand was bound in a grimy rag. This was Chickenlegs.

"Did they harm you, Josey?" asked the giant.