Lone Elm hat, and it was at its white roses,
hated by her, that she wept. For her friends were telling her, with
the ecstatic joy of true friends, that cart-wheels could not be worn,
being three seasons passed into oblivion.

"Put on your old hat and come, Tonia," they urged.

"For Easter Sunday?" she answered. "I'll die first." And wept again.

The hats of the fortunate ones were curved and twisted into the style
of spring's latest proclamation.

A strange being rode out of the brush among them, and there sat his
horse languidly. He was stained and disfigured with the green of the
grass and the limestone of rocky roads.

"Hallo, Pearson," said Daddy Weaver. "Look like you've been breaking a
mustang. What's that you've got tied to your saddle--a pig in a poke?"

"Oh, come on, Tonia, if you're going," said Betty Rogers. "We mustn't
wait any longer. We've saved a seat in the buckboard for you. Never
mind the hat. That lovely muslin you've got on looks sweet enough with
any old hat."

Pearson was slowly untying the queer thing on his saddle. Tonia looked
at him with a sudden hope. Pearson was a man who created hope. He got
the thing loose and handed it to her. Her quick fingers tore at the
strings.

"Best I could do," said Pearson slowly. "What Road Runner and me done
to it will be about all it needs."

"Oh, oh! it's just the right shape," shrieked Tonia. "And red roses!
Wait till I try it on!"

She flew in to the glass, and out again, beaming, radiating, blossomed.

"Oh, don't red become her?" chanted the girls in recitative. "Hurry
up, Tonia!"

Tonia stopped for a moment by the side of Road Runner.

"Thank you, thank you, Wells," she said, happily. "It's just what I
wanted. Won't you come over to Cactus to-morrow and go to church with
me?"

"If I can," said Pearson. He was looking curiously at her hat, and
then he grinned weakly.

Tonia flew into the buckboard like a bird. The vehicles sped away for
Cactus.

"What have you been doing, Pearson?" asked Daddy Weaver. "You ain't
looking so well as common."

"Me?" said Pearson. "I've been painting flowers. Them roses was white
when I left Lone Elm. Help me down, Daddy Weaver, for I haven't got
any more paint to spare."

ROUND THE CIRCLE

[This story is especially interesting as an early treatment (1902) of
the theme afterward developed with a surer hand in The Pendulum.]

"Find yo' shirt all right, Sam?" asked Mrs. We