antly.

"I s'pose it'll cost suthin'," he insinuated in a dubious tone.

"Mattie Stuart paid seven dollars fer her'n, pap, an' I----"

"Seven how manys?"

"Dollars, pap, makin' an' everythin'. An' then I ought to have a new
hat to go with the dress, an' a new pair o' shoes. All the girls are
wearin' white, but I reckon I can git along with a good coloured one
that'll do fer winter."

"Wal, all right. I'll fix it--some way," Ans said, turning away only to
look back and smile to see her dancing up and down and crying:

"Oh, goody, goody!"

"I'll do it if I haf to borrow money at two per cent a month," said he
to Bert, as he explained the case. "Hear her sing! Why, dern it! I'd
spend all I've got to keep that child twitterin' like that. Wouldn't
you, eh?"

Bert was silent, thinking deeply on a variety of matters suggested by
Anson's words. The crickets were singing from out the weeds near by; a
lost little wild chicken was whistling in plaintive sweetness down in
the barley-field; the flaming light from the half-sunk sun swept along
the green and yellow grain, glorifying as with a bath of gold
everything it touched.

"I wish that grain hadn't ripened so fast, Ans. It's blightin'."

"Think so?"

"No: I know it. I went out to look at it before supper, an' every one
of those spots that look so pretty are just simply burnin' up! But,
say, ain't it a little singular that Flaxen should blossom out in a
desire for a new dress all at once? Ain't it rather sudden?"

"Wal, no: I don't think it is. Come to look it all over, up one side
an' down the other, she's been growin' about an inch a month this
summer, an' her best dress is gittin' turrible short the best way you
can fix it. She's gittin' to be 'most a woman, Bert."

"Yes: I know she is," said Bert, significantly. "An' something's got to
be done right off."

"Wha' d' ye mean by that, ol' man?"

"I mean jest this. It's time we did something religious for that girl.
She ain't had much chance since she's been here with us. She ain't had
no chance at all. Now I move that we send her away to school this
winter. Give her a good outfit an' send her away. This ain't no sort o'
way for a girl to grow up in."

"Wal, I've be'n thinkin' o' that myself; but where'll we send her?"

"Oh, back to the States somewhere; Wisconsin or Minnesota--somewhere."

"Why not to Boomtown?"

"Well, I'll tell yeh, Ans. I've been hearing a good 'eal off an' on
about the way we're brin