lking with a lady on the public street and meet a member of my family
looking like that! Oh, LOVELY!"

In the anguish of this recollection his voice cracked, and though his
eyes were dry his gestures wept for him. Plainly, he was about to reach
the most lamentable portion of his narrative. "And then she HOLLERED at
me! She hollered, 'Oh, WILL--EE!'" Here he gave an imitation of Jane's
voice, so damnatory that Jane ceased to eat for several moments and drew
herself up with a kind of dignity. "She hollered, 'Oh, WILL--EE' at
me!" he stormed. "Anybody would think I was about six years old! She
hollered, 'Oh, Will--ee,' and she rubbed her stomach and slushed apple
sauce all over her face, and she kept hollering, 'Will--ee!' with her
mouth full. 'Will--ee, look! Good! Bread-and-butter and apple sauce and
sugar! I bet you wish YOU had some, Will--ee!'"

"You did eat some, the other day," said Jane. "You ate a whole lot. You
eat it every chance you get!"

"You hush up!" he shouted, and returned to his description of the
outrage. "She kept FOLLOWING us! She followed us, hollering, 'WILL--EE!'
till it's a wonder we didn't go deaf! And just look at her! I don't
see how you can stand it to have her going around like that and people
knowing it's your child! Why, she hasn't got enough ON!"

Mrs. Baxter laughed. "Oh, for this very hot weather, I really don't
think people notice or care much about--"

"'Notice'!" he wailed. "I guess Miss PRATT noticed! Hot weather's no
excuse for--for outright obesity!" (As Jane was thin, it is probable
that William had mistaken the meaning of this word.) "Why, half o' what
she HAS got on has come unfastened--especially that frightful thing
hanging around her leg--and look at her back, I just beg you! I ask you
to look at her back. You can see her spinal cord!"

"Column," Mrs. Baxter corrected. "Spinal column, Willie."

"What do _I_ care which it is?" he fumed. "People aren't supposed to go
around with it EXPOSED, whichever it is! And with apple sauce on their
ears!"

"There is not!" Jane protested, and at the moment when she spoke she was
right. Naturally, however, she lifted her hands to the accused ears, and
the unfortunate result was to justify William's statement.

"LOOK!" he cried. "I just ask you to look! Think of it: that's the sight
I have to meet when I'm out walking with Miss PRATT! She asked me who
it was, and I wish you'd seen her face. She wanted to know who 'that
curious child