ucket and let him get a whiff," answered
Mr. Crabtree, shaking with amusement. "'Tain't no use to offer a man
no kind of young lollypop when he have got his mouth fixed on a nice
old-fashioned pound-cake woman," he added in a ruthful tone of voice
as he and Rose Mary both laughed over the trying plight in which he
found his misguided love affairs. "There comes that curly apple puff
now. Howdy, Louisa Helen; come across the plank and I'll give you this
chair if I have to."

"I don't wanter make you creak your joints," answered Louisa Helen
with a pert little toss of her curly head as she passed him and stood
by Rose Mary's table. "Miss Rose Mary, I wanter to show you this
Sunday waist I've done made Maw and get you to persuade her some about
it for me. I put this little white ruffle in the neck and sleeves and
a bunch of it down here under her chin, and now she says I've got to
take it right off. Paw's been dead five years, and I've most forgot
how he looked. Oughtn't she let it stay?"

"I think it looks lovely," answered Rose Mary, eying the waist with
enthusiasm. "I'll come down to see your mother and beg her to let it
stay as soon as I get the butter worked. Didn't she look sweet with
that piece of purple lilac I put in her hair the other night? Did she
let that stay?"

"Yes, she did until Mr. Crabtree noticed it, and then she threw it
away. Wasn't he silly?" asked Louisa Helen with a teasing giggle at
the blushing bachelor.

"It shure was foolish of me to say one word," he admitted with a
laugh. "But I tell you girls what I'll do if you back Mis' Plunkett
into that plum pretty garment with its white tags. I'll go over to
Boliver and bring you both two pounds of mixed peppermint and
chocolate candy with a ribbon tied around both boxes, and maybe some
pretty strings of beads, too. Is it a bargain?" And Rose Mary smiled
appreciatively as Louisa Helen gave an eager assent.

At this juncture a team driven down the Road had stopped in front of
the store, and from under the wide straw hat young Bob Nickols' eager
eyes lighted on Louisa Helen's white sunbonnet which was being flirted
partly in and partly out of the milk-house door. As he threw down the
reins he gave a low, sweet quail whistle, and Louisa Helen's response
was given in one liquid note of accord.

"Lands alive, it woulder been drinking harm tea to try to whistle a
woman down in my day, but now they come a-running," remarked Mr.
Crabtree to Rose Mary, as