tles did much strawberry festivalin'; they had
other things to attend to." Lute, however, was going and if he had been
invited to a Presidential reception he could not have been much more
excited. He was dressed and ready at supper time, although the festival
did not begin until seven-thirty.

"Think I'm all right, Dorindy, do you?" he queried, anxiously turning
himself about for his wife's inspection. "How about these new pants? Fur
enough down on my boots, be they?"

Dorinda looked him over with a critical eye. "Um-hm," she observed,
"that end of 'em seems to be all right. But I cal'late the upper end
ain't been introduced to your vest yet. Anyhow, the two don't seem to be
well enough acquainted to associate close."

Lute bent forward to inspect the hiatus between trousers and waistcoat.
"By time!" he exclaimed, "I told Sim Eldredge they was too short in the
waist. He said if they was any longer they'd wrinkle under the arms. I
don't know what to do. If I hist 'em up they'll be what the fellers call
high-water, won't them?"

"Humph! I'd ruther have 'em high-water than shoal in the middle of the
channel. You'll have to average up somehow. I ought to have known better
than to trust you to buy anything all by yourself."

She condescended to approve of my appearance when, an hour later, I came
downstairs, garbed in my best.

"Humph!" she vouchsafed, after a long look. "I declare! I'd hardly know
you, Roscoe. You look more as you used to when you fust come here to
live."

"Thanks," I answered, drily. "I'm glad to see that you respect old age.
This suit is venerable enough to command that kind of respect."

"'Tain't the suit, though that's all right enough. It's the way you wear
it, I guess. You look BETTER than you used to. You're browned up
and broadened out and it's real becomin'. But," she added, with
characteristic caution, "you must remember that good looks don't count
for much. My father used to say to me that handsome is that handsome
does. Not that I was so homely I'd scare the crows, but he didn't want
me to be vain. Now don't fall overboard in THAT suit, will you?"

Mother noticed my unwonted grandeur when I went in to say good-night to
her.

"Why, Roscoe!" she exclaimed. "You must consider this strawberry
festival very important."

"Why, Mother?"

"Because you've taken such pains to dress for it."

"It did not require a great deal of pains. I merely put on what Dorinda
calls my Sunday clothes. I