as kind of late when we
started."

Mrs. Daggett relinquished her random desire with her accustomed
amiability. Life consisted mainly in giving up things, she had found;
but being cheerful, withal, served to cast a mellow glow over the
severest denials; in fact, it often turned them into something
unexpectedly rare and beautiful.

"I guess that's so, Ann," she agreed. "Dolly got kind of fractious
over his headstall when I was harnessin'. He don't seem to like his
sun hat, and I dunno's I blame him. I guess if our ears stuck up
through the top of our bunnits like his we wouldn't like it neither."

Mrs. Whittle surveyed the animal's grotesquely bonneted head with
cold disfavor.

"What simple ideas you do get into your mind, Abby," said she, with
the air of one conscious of superior intellect. "A horse ain't human,
Abby. He ain't no idea he's wearing a hat.... The Deacon says their
heads get hotter with them rediculous bunnits on. He favors a green
branch."

"Well," said Mrs. Daggett, foiling a suspicious movement of Dolly's
switching tail, "mebbe that's so; I feel some cooler without a hat.
But 'tain't safe to let the sun beat right down, the way it does,
without something between. Then, you see, Henry's got a lot o' these
horse hats in the store to sell. So of course Dolly, he has to wear
one."

Mrs. Whittle cautiously wiped the dust from her hard red cheeks.

"My! if it ain't hot," she observed. "You're so fleshy, Abby, I
should think you'd feel it something terrible."

"Oh, I don't know," said Mrs. Daggett placidly. "Of course I'm
fleshy, Ann; I ain't denying that; but so be you. You don't want to
think about the heat so constant, Ann. Our thermometer fell down and
got broke day before yesterday, and Henry says 'I'll bring you up
another from the store this noon.' But he forgot all about it. I
didn't say a word, and that afternoon I set out on the porch under
the vines and felt real cool--not knowing it was so hot--when along
comes Mrs. Fulsom, a-pantin' and fannin' herself. 'Good land, Abby!'
says she; 'by the looks, a body'd think you didn't know the
thermometer had risen to ninety-two since eleven o'clock this
morning.' 'I didn't,' I says placid; 'our thermometer's broke.'
'Well, you'd better get another right off,' says she, wiping her face
and groaning. 'It's an awful thing, weather like this, not to have a
thermometer right where you can see it.' Henry brought a real nice
one home from the store tha