ot some really ones, Be'trice, that'll wiggle
dere own self."

"Oh, dear me! It's too hot, Dorman."

"'Tisn't, Be'trice It's dest as cool--and by de brook it's awf-lly
cold. Come, Be'trice!" He pulled at the smart little pink ruffles on her
skirt.

"I'm too sleepy, hon."

"You can sleep by de brook, Be'trice. I'll let you," he promised
generously, "'cept when I need anudder grasshopper; nen I'll wake you
up."

"Wait till to-morrow. I don't believe the fish are hungry to-day. Don't
tear my skirt to pieces, Dorman!"

Dorman began to whine. He had never found his divinity in so unlovely
a mood. "I want to go now! Dey are too hungry, Be'trice! Looey Sam is
goin' to fry my fishes for dinner, to s'prise auntie. Come, Be'trice!"

"Why don't you go with the child, Beatrice? You grow more selfish every
day." Mrs. Lansell could not endure selfishness--in others. "You know he
will not give us any peace until you do."

Dorman instantly proceeded to make good his grandmother's prophecy, and
wept so that one could hear him a mile.

"Oh, dear me! Be still, Dorman--your auntie has a headache. Well, get
your rod, if you know where it is--which I doubt." Beatrice flounced
out of the hammock and got her hat, one of those floppy white things,
fluffed with thin, white stuff, till they look like nothing so much as
a wisp of cloud, with ribbons to moor it to her head and keep it from
sailing off to join its brothers in the sky.

Down by the creek, where the willows nodded to their own reflections in
the still places, it was cool and sweet scented, and Beatrice forgot her
grievances, and was not sorry she had come.

(It was at about this time that a tall young fellow, two miles down the
coulee, put away his field glass and went off to saddle his horse.)

"Don't run ahead so, Dorman," Beatrice cautioned. To her had been given
the doubtful honor of carrying the baking-powder can of grasshoppers.
Even divinities must make themselves useful to man.

"Why, Be'trice?" Dorman swished his rod in unpleasant proximity to his
divinity's head.

"Because, honey"--Beatrice dodged--"you might step on a snake, a
rattlesnake, that would bite you."

"How would it bite, Be'trice?"

"With its teeth, of course; long, wicked teeth, with poison on them."

"I saw one when I was ridin' on a horse wis Uncle Dick. It kept windin'
up till it was round, and it growled wis its tail, Be'trice. And Uncle
Dick chased it, and nen it unwinded itself and cr