en in need of a few dollars to purchase actual
necessities that he could not borrow, he would drive away with his wagon
and peddle German oleographs and patent medicines to the less-educated
settlers, returning after several weeks' absence to settle down again to a
period of loafing.

Aline and her friend Lilian Kenyon, as well as the latter's brother were
with me.

"What on earth can they be doing inside there, and what a noise they are
making," said Miss Kenyon.

"It shows that my good counsel has not all fallen on stony soil," Aline
answered laughingly. "Harry--that is Mr. Lorraine--is apparently seriously
engaged in spring cleaning. I have been giving him lessons lately on the
virtues of cleanliness."

Understanding the process, I grinned at this, and fancied, though I could
not be certain, that Aline's fair companion envied her the opportunity for
giving Harry lessons on anything. When the next cloud of dust rolled out
of the window an irate voice came with it:

"I'm the biggest slouch on the prairie, eh; I'll pretty well show you
nobody takes liberties with me. I'm almighty sick of this fooling already;
there goes your confounded bucket, and the rest of the blamed caboodle
after it."

Lilian Kenyon started when a bucket fell clattering at her feet, a brush
came hurtling toward us, and amid wild language a grimy figure appeared at
the window, dropping chairs and other furniture wholesale out of it, while
her brother, who strove to conceal his merriment, observed:

"Say, hadn't you two better come on with me? It's getting late already,
and Hudson is not as particular as he ought to be when he's angry."

"I agree with you," said Aline in a tone of severity. "He is a very
disgraceful man, and by no means a fit companion for Harry. Ralph, I am
sorry there are occasions when both of you indulge in unwarranted
expressions. Don't you think such conduct unbecoming in an elder brother,
or any respectable landowner, Lily?"

I laughed and Miss Kenyon looked indignant when I answered: "Then go
along; you don't understand our trials, or you wouldn't condemn us. It can
only be natural depravity that leads Harry to persist in living with such
a companion when half the girls on the prairie are willing to provide him
with a better one."

They had hardly left me when, disheveled and dusty, Hudson strode forth in
wrathful disgust.

"It's almighty hard when a man can't live peacefully in his own home
without your confoun