The way she
got it. Put in more feeling and not so much motion. You know what I
mean; you saw the girl. That's the stuff that gets over. Ready?
Camera!"

CHAPTER IX

A MAN-SIZED JOB FOR JEAN

Jean was just returning wet-lashed from burying the little brown bird
under a wild-rose bush near the creek. She had known all along that it
would die; everything that she took any interest in turned out badly,
it seemed to her. The wonder was that the bird had lived so long after
she had taken it under her protection.

All that day her Aunt Ella had worn a wet towel turban-wise upon her
head, and the look of a martyr about to enter a den of lions. Add that
to the habitual atmosphere of injury which she wore, and Aunt Ella was
not what one might call a cheerful companion. Besides, the appearance
of the wet towel was a danger signal to Jean's conscience, and forbade
any thought of saddling Pard and riding away from the Bar Nothing into
her own dream world and the great outdoors. Jean's conscience commanded
her instead to hang her riding-clothes in the closet and wear striped
percale and a gingham apron, which she hated; and to sweep and dust and
remember not to whistle, and to look sympathetic,--which she was not,
particularly; and to ask her Aunt Ella frequently if she felt any
better, and if there was anything Jean could do for her. There never
was anything she could do, but conscience and custom required her to
observe the ceremony of asking. Aunt Ella found some languid
satisfaction in replying dolorously that there was nothing that anybody
could do, and that her part in life seemed to be to suffer.

You may judge what Jean's mood was that day, when you are told that she
came to the point, not an hour before the bird died, of looking at her
aunt with that little smile at the corners of her eyes and just easing
her lips. "Well, you certainly play your part in life with a heap of
enthusiasm," she had replied, and had gone out into the kitchen and
whistled when she did not feel in the least like whistling. Her
conscience knew Jean pretty well, and did not attempt to reprove her
for what she had done.

Then she found the bird dead in the little nest she had made for it,
and things went all wrong.

She was returning from the burial of the bird, and was trying to force
herself back to her normal attitude of philosophic calm, when she saw
her Uncle Carl sitting on the edge of the front porch, with his elbows
r