hair and in a pair
of great, slate-blue eyes two sizes too large for the thin face. A
double conclusion came and sat in Thomas Jefferson's mind: she was
rather to be contemptuously pitied than feared; and as for looks--well,
she was not to be thought of in the same day with black-eyed Nan
Bryerson.

When the dog was reduced to quietude, the small one repaid Thomas
Jefferson's stare with a level gaze out of the over-sized eyes.

"Was it that you were afraid of Hector?" she asked.

"Huh!" said Thomas Jefferson, and the scorn was partly for her queer way
of speaking and partly for the foolishness of the question. "Huh! I
reckon you don't know who I am. I'd have killed your dog if he'd jumped
on me, maybe."

"Me? I do know who you are. You are Thomas Gordon. Your mother took care
of me and prayed for me when I was sick. Hector is a--an extremely good
dog. He would not jump at you."

"It's mighty lucky for him he didn't," bragged Thomas Jefferson, with a
very creditable imitation of his father's grim frown. Then he sat down
on the bank of the stream and busied himself with his fishing-tackle as
if he considered the incident closed.

"What is it that you are trying to do?" asked Ardea, when the silence
had extended to the third worm impaled on the hook and promptly
abstracted therefrom by a wily sucker lying at the bottom of the pool.

"I was fishin' some before you and your dog came along and scared all
the perch away," he said sourly. Then, turning suddenly on her: "Why
don't you go ahead and say it? Is it 'cause you're afeard to?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"I know what you're going to say; you are going to tell me this is your
grandfather's land and run me off. But I ain't aimin' to go till I'm
good and ready."

She looked down on him without malice.

"You are such a funny boy," she remarked, and there was something in her
way of saying it that made Thomas Jefferson feel little and infantile
and inferior, though he was sure there must be an immense age difference
in his favor.

"Why?" he demanded.

"Oh, I don't know; just because you are. If you knew French I could
explain it better that way."

"I don't know anybody by that name, and I don't care," said Thomas
Jefferson doggedly; and went back to his fishing.

Followed another interval of silence, in which two more worms were fed
to the insatiable sucker at the bottom of the pool. Then came the
volcanic outburst.

"I think you are mean, mean!"