moment, and then
wriggled down into his blanket again. I tickled his nose with a blade of
sweet-grass. Then I washed my face in the dew, the same as we did in
Christ-Church Meadow that glorious May-Day in Oxford. By the time
Dinky-Dunk woke up I had the coffee boiling and the bacon sizzling in
the pan. It was the most celestial smell that ever assailed human
nostrils, and I blush with shame at the thought of how much I ate at
that breakfast, sitting flat on an empty oat-sack and leaning against a
wagon-wheel. By eight o'clock we were in the metropolis of Buckhorn and
busy gathering up our things there. And they made a very respectable
wagon-load.

_Thursday the Second_

I have been practising like mad learning to play the mouth-organ. I
bought it in Buckhorn, without letting Dinky-Dunk know, and all day
long, when I knew it was safe, I've been at it. So to-night, when I had
my supper-table all ready, I got the ladder that leaned against one of
the granaries and mounted the nearest hay-stack. There, quite out of
sight, I waited until Dinky-Dunk came in with his team. I saw him go
into the shack and then step outside again, staring about in a brown
study. Then I struck up _Traumerei_.

You should have seen that boy's face! He looked up at the sky, as though
my poor little harmonica were the aerial outpourings of archangels. He
stood stock-still, drinking it in. Then he bolted for the stables,
thinking it came from there. It took him some time to corner me up on my
stack-top. Then I slid down into his arms. And I believe he loves that
mouth-organ music. After supper he made me go out and sit on the oat-box
and play my repertory. He says it's wonderful, from a distance. But that
mouth-organ's rather brassy, and it makes my lips sore. Then, too, my
mouth isn't big enough for me to "tongue" it properly. When I told
Dinky-Dunk this he said:

"Of course it isn't! What d'you suppose I've been calling you Boca Chica
for?"

And I've just discovered "Boca Chica" is Spanish for "Little Mouth"--and
me with a trap, Matilda Anne, that you used to call the Cave of the
Winds! Now Dinky-Dunk vows he'll have a Victrola before the winter is
over! Ye gods and little fishes, what a luxury! There was a time, not so
long ago, when I was rather inclined to sniff at the Westbury's electric
player-piano and its cabinet of neatly canned classics! How life humbles
us! And how blind all women are in their ideals and their search for
ha