of
compensation to the poet for the loss of the buttermilk.

The imagination of all true lovers is easily exercised about matters
pertaining to the tender passion, and though Mr. Crabtree had never in
his life received such a letter he divined instantly that it should be
delivered promptly by a messenger whose mercury wings should scarcely
pause in agitating the air of arrival and departure. And suiting his
actions to his instinct he whirled the envelope across the spring
stream to the table by Rose Mary's side with the aim of one of the
little god's own arrows and retreated before her greeting and
invitation to enter should tempt him.

"Honey drip and women folks is sweet jest about the same and they both
stick some when you're got your full of 'em at the time,"
philosophized the poet as he wiped his mouth with the back of his
hand.

"Say, Crabbie, don't tell Mis' Rucker I have come home yet, please. I
want to go out and lay down in the barn on the hay and see if I can
get that '_hair-despair_' tangle straightened out. She hasn't seen me
to tell me things for two hours or more and I know I won't get no
thinking done this day if I don't make the barn 'fore she spies me."
And with furtive steps and eyes he left the store and veered in a
round-about way toward the barn.

And over in the milk-house Rose Mary stood in the long shaft of
golden light that came across the valley and fell through the door, it
would seem, just to throw a glow over the wide sheets of closely
written paper. Rose Mary had been pale as she worked, and her deep
eyes had been filled with a very gentle sadness which lighted with a
flash as she opened the envelope and began to read.

"Just a line, Rose girl, before I put out the light and go on a dream
hunt for you," Everett wrote in his square black letters. "The day has
been long and I feel as if I had been drawn out still longer. I'm
tired, I'm hungry, and there's no balm of Gilead in New York. I can't
eat because there are no cornmeal muffins in this howling wilderness
of houses, streets, people and noise. I can't drink because something
awful rises in my throat when I see cream or buttermilk, and sassarcak
doesn't interest me any more. I would be glad to lap out of one of
your crocks with Sniffie and the wee dogs.

"And most of all I'm tired to see you. I want to tell you how hard I
am working, and that I don't seem to be able to make some of these
stupid old gold backs see things my way, e