ll-principled girl, she was
sowing the grain of a certain harvest.

"O'mie," she began angrily, "you've been talking about me, and you've
been spying on me long enough; and I'm going to settle you now. You are
a contemptible spy, and you're the biggest rascal in this town. That's
what you are."

"Not by the steelyards, I ain't," O'mie replied. Passing from behind the
counter and courteously offering her a chair. Then jumping upon the
counter beside her he sat swinging his heels against it, fingering the
yard-stick beside the pile of calicoes. "Not by the steelyards, I ain't
the biggest. Tell Mapleson's lots longer, and James Conlow, blacksmith,
and Cam Gentry, and Cris Mead are all bigger. But if you want to settle
me, I'm ready. Who says I've been talking about you?"

"Amos Judson, and he knows. He's told me all about you."

O'mie's irrepressible smile spread over his face. "All about me? I
didn't give him credit for that much insight."

"I'm not joking, and you must listen to me. I want to know why you tag
after me every place I go. No gentleman would do that."

"Maybe not, nor a lady nather," O'mie interposed.

Lettie's face burned angrily.

"And you've been saying things about me. You've got to quit it. Only a
dirty coward would talk about a girl as you do."

She stamped her foot and her pudgy hands were clenched into hard little
knots. It was a cheap kind of fury, a flimsy bit of drama, but tragedies
have grown out of even a lesser degree of unbridled temper. O'mie was a
monkey to whom the ludicrous side of life forever appealed, and the
sight of Lettie as an accusing vengeance was too much for him. The
twinkle in his eye only angered her the more.

"Oh, you needn't laugh, you and Marjie Whately. How I hate her! but I've
fixed her. You two have always been against me, I know. I've heard what
you say. She's a liar, and a mean flirt, always trying to take everybody
away from me; and as good as a pauper if Judson didn't just keep her and
her mother."

"Marjie'd never try to get Judson away from Lettie," O'mie thought, but
all sense of humor had left his face now. "Lettie Conlow," he said,
leaning toward her and speaking calmly, "you may call me what you
please--Lord, it couldn't hurt me--but you, nor nobody else, man or
woman, praist or pirate, is comin' into this store while I'm alone in
controllin' it, and call Marjie Whately nor any other dacent woman by
any evil names. If you've come here to settle me