ed a sudden voice.

He looked up and saw Nettie Russell's roguish face peering over the
board fence.

"Hello," he replied, and stood an instant in wordless surprise. "I
didn't know you lived there."

"Well, I do. Aint tickled to death to find it out, I s'pose? Say, you
aint so very mad at me, are yeh?" she added insinuatingly.

He didn't know what to say, so he kept silent. He noticed for the first
time how childishly round her face was!

She took a new turn. "Say, aint you hungry?"

Bradley admitted that he had eaten an early breakfast. He did not say
it was composed of fried pork and potatoes and baker's bread, without
tea, coffee, or milk.

The girl seemed delighted to think he was hungry.

"You wait a minute," she commanded, and her smiling face disappeared
from the top of the fence. Brad went to work to keep from catching
cold, wondering what she was going to do. She reappeared soon with a
fat home-made sausage and a couple of warm biscuits which she insisted
upon his taking.

"They're all buttered and--they've got sugar on 'em," she whispered
significantly.

"Say, you eat now, while I saw," she commanded, coming around through
the gate.

She had put on her fascinator hood, but her hands and wrists were bare.
She struggled away on a log, putting her knee on it in a comically
resolute style.

"The saw always goes crooked," she said in despair. Bradley laughed at
her heartily.

"Say, do you do this for fun?" she asked, stopping to puff, her cheeks
a beautiful pink.

"No, I don't. I do it because I'm obliged to."

She threw down the saw. "Well, that beats me; I can't saw, but I can
cook. I made them biscuits." She challenged his opinion, as he well
knew.

"They're first rate," he admitted, and they were friends. She watched
him eat with apparent satisfaction.

"Say, I can't stay here, I'll freeze. Are yeh going to be here till
noon?"

"Yes."

"Well, when I whistle you come in and get some grub, will yeh?" Bradley
smiled back at her laughing face.

"This ain't your folks' wood pile."

"What's the difference?" she replied. "You jest come in, will yeh?"

"Yes, I'll come."

"Like fun you will! Honest?" she persisted.

"Hope to die," he said solemnly.

"That's the checker," she said, and disappeared with a click of the
tongue.

Bradley worked away in a glow of cheerfulness. It was astonishing how
much this little victory over a roguish girl meant to him. He had
changed one person's ri