, Miss Kirkwood."

He looked at her intently, laughed, threw the sack over his shoulder and
went out, holding the coin in his hand.

CHAPTER V

THE OTHERWISENESS OF PHYLLIS

Hint to those who read with an eye on the clock: skip this chapter! It
is made up from notes furnished by Mrs. John Newman King, Judge Walters,
Captain Joshua Wilson, the veteran recorder, former-Sheriff Whittlesey
and others, and is included merely to satisfy those citizens of
Montgomery who think this entire history should be devoted to Phil, to
the exclusion of her friends and relations. The historian hopes he is an
open-minded person, and he would rather please Montgomery than any other
center of thought and industry he knows; but the laws of proportion (as
Phil would be the first to point out) may not lightly be ignored. Phil's
otherwiseness was always difficult to keep in bounds; it must not
tyrannize these pages. Skip and carry thirteen, but don't complain if
pilgrims from Montgomery take you to task for denying Phil five minutes
of your time.

Phil was on her way to Buckeye Lane the first cold day in November to
call on the daughter of a newly enrolled member of the Madison faculty
when she saw her Uncle Amzi on the bank steps taking the air. She had on
her best walking-suit, and swung a silver cardcase in her hand. The
cardcase marked an advance. Formal calls were not to Phil's taste, but
her aunts had lately been endeavoring to persuade her that it was no
longer seemly for her to "drop in" when and where she pleased, but that
there were certain calls of duty and ceremony which required her best
togs and the leaving of circumspect bits of cardboard inscribed "Miss
Kirkwood." When Phil set forth to call upon a girl friend it was still
something of a question whether caller and callee would sit in the
parlor and be ladies or seek the open to crack walnuts on the kitchen
steps or slide down the cellar door.

As Phil spied her uncle she stopped abruptly, feigned to be looking at
the sign over his head, and when his glasses presently focused upon her,
pretended suddenly to be intent upon the face of the court-house clock
two blocks distant.

"Beg pardon, sir, but is this a bank?"

Thus accosted Mr. Montgomery looked upon his niece with exaggerated
surprise.

"A bank, little girl? What on earth do you want with a bank?"

"I thought I might separate it from some of its cash; or if the terms
are satisfactory I might leave some