nt avatar of Mr. Bertie Leon and the evident pride of her daughter
in the bright-plumaged captive she had brought to Chaney Creek, the spoil
of her maiden snare. "I don't more'n half like that little feller." (It is
a Western habit to call a well-dressed man a "little feller." The epithet
would light on Hercules Farnese if he should go to Illinois dressed as a
Cocodes.) "No honest folks wears beard onto their upper lips. I wouldn't
be surprised if he wasn't a gamboller."

Allen Golyer, apparently unconscious in his fatigue of the cap which Dame
Barringer was vicariously setting for him, walked away with his spade on
his shoulder, and the good woman went systematically to work in making
Susie miserable by sharp little country criticisms of her heart's idol.

Day after day wore on, and, to Dame Barringer's delight and Susie's
dismay, Mr. Leon did not come.

"He is such a businessman," thought trusting Susan, "he can't get away
from Keokuk. But he'll be sure to write." So Susie put on her sun-bonnet
and hurried up to the post-office: "Any letters for me, Mr. Whaler?" The
artful and indefinite plural was not disguise enough for Miss Susie, so
she added, "I was expecting a letter from my aunt."

"No letters here from your aunt, nor your uncle, nor none of the tribe,"
said old Whaler, who had gone over with Tyler to keep his place, and so
had no further use for good manners.

"I think old Tommy Whaler is an impudent old wretch," said Susie that
evening, "and I won't go near his old post-office again." But Susie forgot
her threat of vengeance the next day, and she went again, lured by family
affection, to inquire for that letter which Aunt Abbie _must_ have
written. The third time she went, rummy old Whaler roared very improperly,
"Bother your aunt! You've got a beau somewheres--that's what's the
matter."

Poor Susan was so dazzled by this flash of clairvoyance that she hurried
from that dreadful post-office, scarcely hearing the terrible words that
the old gin-pig hurled after her: "_And he's forgot you!--that's what's
the matter._"

Susie Barringer walked home along the river-road, revolving many things in
her mind. She went to her room and locked her door by sticking a pen-knife
over the latch, and sat down to have a good cry. Her faculties being thus
cleared for action, she thought seriously for an hour. If you can remember
when you were a school-girl, you know a great deal of solid thinking can
be done in an hour.