m for steady company?" her relatives asked.

"It's a power he's got," Blixie answered, "I just can't help it--it's
a power."

"One of his feet is bigger than the other--how can you keep steady
company with him?" they asked again.

All she would answer was, "It's a power."

All the time, of course, the gold buckskin whincher on the little
chain around her neck was working. It was saying, "If she meets a man
with three X's in his name she must fall head over heels in love with
him."

At a band concert in the public square one night she met James
Sixbixdix. There was no helping it. She dropped her eyes and threw her
smiles at him. And for six weeks they kept steady company going to
band concerts, dances, hayrack rides, picnics and high jinks together.

"Why do you keep steady company with him? He's a musical soup eater,"
her relatives said to her. And she answered, "It's a power--I can't
help myself."

Leaning down with her head in a rain water cistern one day, listening
to the echoes against the strange wooden walls of the cistern, the
gold buckskin whincher on the little chain around her neck slipped off
and fell down into the rain water.

"My luck is gone," said Blixie. Then she went into the house and made
two telephone calls. One was to James Sixbixdix telling him she
couldn't keep the date with him that night. The other was to Jimmy the
Flea, the climber, the steeplejack.

"Come on over--I got the blues and I want you to whistle 'em away,"
was what she telephoned Jimmy the Flea.

And so--if you ever come across a gold buckskin whincher, be careful.
It's got a power. It'll make you fall head over heels in love with the
next man you meet with an X in his name. Or it will do other strange
things because different whinchers have different powers.

[Illustration]

The Story of Jason Squiff and Why He
Had a Popcorn Hat, Popcorn Mittens
and Popcorn Shoes

Jason Squiff was a cistern cleaner. He had greenish yellowish hair. If
you looked down into a cistern when he was lifting buckets of slush
and mud you could tell where he was, you could pick him out down in
the dark cistern, by the lights of his greenish yellowish hair.

Sometimes the buckets of slush and mud tipped over and ran down on the
top of his head. This covered his greenish yellowish hair. And then it
was hard to tell where he was and it was not easy to p