like an excited schoolboy
making his first formal call; that he had shaken hands with Miss Briscoe
when he left her, as if he should never see her again; that he had taken
Miss Sherwood's hand twice in one very temporary parting; that he had
shaken the judge's hand five times, and William's four!

"Idiot!" he cried. "What has happened to me?" Then he shook his fist at
the moon and went in to work--he thought.

CHAPTER VII. MORNING: "SOME IN RAGS AND SOME IN TAGS AND SOME IN VELVET
GOWNS"

The bright sun of circus-day shone into Harkless's window, and he awoke
to find himself smiling. For a little while he lay content, drowsily
wondering why he smiled, only knowing that there was something new.
It was thus, as a boy, he had wakened on his birthday mornings, or on
Christmas, or on the Fourth of July, drifting happily out of pleasant
dreams into the consciousness of long-awaited delights that had come
true, yet lying only half-awake in a cheerful borderland, leaving
happiness undefined.

The morning breeze was fluttering at his window blind; a honeysuckle
vine tapped lightly on the pane. Birds were trilling, warbling,
whistling. From the street came the rumbling of wagons, merry cries of
greeting, and the barking of dogs. What was it made him feel so young
and strong and light-hearted? The breeze brought him the smell of
June roses, fresh and sweet with dew, and then he knew why he had come
smiling from his dreams. He would go a holiday-making. With that he
leaped out of bed, and shouted loudly: "Zen! Hello, Xenophon!"

In answer, an ancient, very black darky put his head in at the door, his
warped and wrinkled visage showing under his grizzled hair like charred
paper in a fall of pine ashes. He said: "Good-mawn', suh. Yessuh. Hit's
done pump' full. Good-mawn', suh."

A few moments later, the colored man, seated on the front steps of the
cottage, heard a mighty splashing within, while the rafters rang with
stentorian song:

"He promised to buy me a bunch o' blue ribbon,
He promised to buy me a bunch o' blue ribbon,
He promised to buy me a bunch o' blue ribbon,
To tie up my bonny brown hair

"Oh dear! What can the matter be?
Oh dear! What can the matter be?
Oh dear! What can the matter be?
Johnnie's so long at the Fair!"

At the sound of this complaint, delivered in a manly voice, the
listener's jaw dropped, and his mouth opened and