"He'll be in for dinner," replied Hazel, with a swift flash of dark eyes. "And there I was hoping all along you had come to see me."

"I came to see you, too."

"Me too is worse, lots worse. Shows what an afterthought I am. Life's an awful thing for a girl."

"I'll bet it is. For you especially. This is the first time I ever came here that some one else wasn't here ahead of me. Usually a feller has to fight his way through a whole herd in order to say good evening to you."

Hazel put her head on one side and looked at him demurely. "They come to see Uncle Tom."

"Which is why they spend all their time talkin' to you."

Hazel smiled. "I feed 'em. I'm a good cook, if I do say it myself.

Stay to dinner, William?"

"Not after that," he told her firmly. "I don't want another meal here long's I live."

"Just you let me catch you sloping out before dinner's over and done with, and I'll never speak to you again as long as _I_ live. Besides, I want you to go fill the waterbucket for me in about ten minutes, and after dinner I need some help in the chicken-house, and Uncle is busy this afternoon. So you stay and be mother's li'l helper, Bill, won't you?"

"Putting it thataway," said Bill, "what can a poor man do?" Here he licked his lips cat fashion and added "Is that cake for dinner?"

"Of course not, you simple thing. Here it is half-past eleven and the cake not even mixed yet. I've got a dried-peach pie though. It's outside cooling. And there'll be fried ham, Bill, and corn fritters--the batter's all ready in that blue bowl. Lima beans, too, the last you'll see this year."

"I saw some young ones for another crop on the vines when I came through the garden," said Billy, who was no farmer.

Hazel smiled pityingly. "The frost will kill 'em before they get a chance to ripen. It can't hold off much longer. Do you realize it's nearly October, Bill? We almost had frost last night."

"Winter's coming."

"Election will be here first. Uncle Tom says you're sure to be elected. My, how important you'll be. Will you speak to a feller then, Bill?"

"I might. You never can tell. Seen Riley lately?"--elaborately casual.

"Saw him last Sunday. To look at him now you'd never know he'd been shot, would you? He's coming to dinner to-day--has some business with Uncle Tom."

"Yeah, like the rest of 'em. Fen dubs on the chicken-house. You said I could help you with that, remember."

Hazel nodded. "Here comes Riley now."

"No," said Billy, when Riley, having put his horse in the corral, made as if to step over him. "You stay right here. She's busy. She doesn't want a long, lazy lump like you clutterin' up her nice clean kitchen. Sidown on the step next mine. I don't care how close you sit."

"But I do," returned Riley, seating himself opposite his friend. "Last time I sat next you I lost my tobacco. Good thing my watch wasn't on that side."

"Shucks, that watch!" Bill said scornfully. "It was good maybe when your grandad had it. It must have cost him two dollars easy."

"Alla same, that's a good watch." Riley returned tranquilly. "It only loses thirty minutes a day now since I had it fixed. Say, Hazel, lemme throw this jigger out, will you? He's only sliming round to mooch a bid to dinner."

"I've asked him to stay," smiled Hazel, "but I don't remember saying anything about it to you."

"You didn't. I said I was coming. Here I am. What's fairer than that, I'd like to know? As I was sayin' before you interrupted, I saw you out ridin' last Sunday."

"Did you?" indifferently.

"Yeah--with that nice old Samson man."

"He's not old," Hazel denied vigorously, "and anyway, he's nice."

"He gives her lollypops," Riley confided to Billy, "and sometimes as much as half-a-pound of chalklet creams. Oh, he's a prince."

Hazel stamped a small foot. "It wasn't half-a-pound. It was--it was--" Her voice dwindled away.

"Say a pound," offered Billy, entering into the spirit of the thing, "and that's a generous estimate."

"Almost as generous as Samson," grinned Riley. "Hazel, go easy on the poor old feller. He can't afford to be givin' you expensive presents like that."

"Sure not," slipped in Billy. "Why, I don't believe Samson makes a bit more than fifty per cent on everything he sells."

"You two think you're smart, don't you. He's a nice man, Mr. Samson is, and he spends an evening here quite often."

"He never spends anything else," said Billy.

"Cheap wit," flung back Hazel.

"Almost as cheap as Samson," tucked in Riley.

Hazel's eyes were beginning to sparkle, and Billy seized his opportunity. "Here, here, Riley, stop it! Don't you lemme hear you making any more slurs against Mr. Samson. He's a friend of mine, and----"

"Oh, you!" cried Hazel, instantly regaining her good humor. "You're as bad as Riley, every bit. But you almost did get a rise out of me. I don't like to hear my friends run down."

"I didn't mean it--anything," said Riley, with well-feigned humbleness.

"I like Samson, I do, the poor old good-for-nothing lump of slumgullion."

Billy shook a sorrowful head. "Honest, Hazel, I'm ashamed of you, robbing the grave thataway."

"I don't believe he's much over sixty, Bill," said Riley.

"Say sixty-one."

"He's forty-one, if you must know," Hazel said.

"I knew it was getting serious," mourned Billy. "They're exchanging birthdays. We'll have to find us a new girl, Riley."

"Not me. I'm satisfied. I'll stick to the last shout and a li'l beyond. Hazel's only fooling these other fellers. I'll make her the best husband in four counties, and she's the girl that knows it. Don't you, Hazel?"

"I'm not that hard up," replied the girl, with a smile that belied the harshness of her words.

"There, you hear?" chuckled Billy. "Now you'll be good, I guess."

"If you won't have me for the twenty-fourth time hand-running, why not take Bill here? He's a good feller, don't drink much, and he's got a heart of gold and a brand of his own--six horses and one calf at the last round-up. Besides, if all that ain't enough, he's gonna be our next sheriff. What more could a girl want?"