ay starvin' for food and clothes, but she certainly is pinin'
for excitement, and who says that ain't just as bad? Seems like
Christian charity for me to give this town something to talk about at
least once a year."

And truly these yearly spring migrations of young Ambrose Thompson had
aroused more interest and unrest in Pennyroyal than the yearly mystery
of the earth's rebirth. Because, for the past five years on a certain
May morning (and there never was a way of discovering just which morning
he might choose) Ambrose had set out, at first on foot and later with
his gig, and been away from his home eight and forty hours. Returning,
he had given no clue as to where he had been.

Now like the music of a calliope the squeak of his wagon wheels awoke
the village. Windows and doors flew open, heads in nightcaps and bald
heads and heads with curls were thrust forth, but to their volley of
questionings and accusations, Ambrose offered only the morning's
greetings.

Travelling with praiseworthy slowness, he neglected no street in
Pennyroyal, and, by the dozen, girls went fluttering in and out of
houses, to wave farewells to the adventurer, while bolder voices called
out Peachy Williams's name with every teasing inflection. One girl to
whom Ambrose threw the spray of honeysuckle from his buttonhole cast it
scornfully back, refusing to accept what she so plainly thought
another's spoils.

Then the young man drove past Brother Bibbs, the Baptist minister, who,
framed in the vestibule of his wooden church, beamed upon him with such
heavenly condescension toward earthly affection that his expression of
"Bless you, my children," was almost equivalent to a marriage ceremony.
Next, along his route, appeared three maiden sisters, the Misses Polly.
They stood in a line in their front yard, Miss Zeruiah, the literary
one, _always_ in advance, then Miss Narcissa, instructor in mathematics
and the sciences, and last and humblest because most useful of the
family trio, Miss Jane, the domestic one. Upon her Ambrose smiled with
especial kindness, remembering certain heart-shaped cookies presented in
early youth, which even in the form of sweet cakes held a kind of
romantic suggestion. The Mistress Polly were directors of the "Polly
Institute," where Ambrose and Peachy had started their technical
education at about the same time, and yet this youthful acquaintance
hardly justified the present arrangement of a love motif. Nevertheless
Am