g for one more than the other and she was too busy at the house
and in the store to have her young friends hanging about. They bothered
her, she said. As for having a particular friend of the other sex,
which some of the girls in her class no older than she seemed to think
a necessary proof of being in their teens, she laughed at the idea. She
had her adopted uncles and Isaiah to take care of and boy beaux were
silly. Talking about them as these girls did was sillier still.

That summer--the summer preceding Mary-'Gusta's fifteenth birthday--was
the liveliest South Harniss had known. The village was beginning to feel
the first symptoms of its later boom as a summer resort. A number of
cottages had been built for people from Boston and New York and Chicago,
and there was talk of a new hotel. Also there was talk of several new
stores, but Hamilton and Company were inclined to believe this merely
talk and did not worry about it. Their trade was unusually brisk and the
demand for Mary-'Gusta's services as salesgirl interfered considerably
with her duties as assistant housekeeper.

One fine, clear July morning she came up to the store early in order
that the partners might go down to the house for breakfast. They had
gone and she had just finished placing on the counters and in other
likely spots about the store sheets of sticky fly paper. Flies are a
nuisance in South Harniss in midsummer and Captain Shad detested them.
Just as the last sheet was laid in place, a young fellow and a girl
came in. Mary-'Gusta recognized them both. The girl was the
seventeen-year-old daughter of a wealthy summer resident, a Mr. Keith
from Chicago. The Keiths had a fine cottage on the bluff at the other
end of the village. The young chap with her was, so gossip reported,
a college friend of her brother. His surname was prosaic enough, being
Smith, but his first name was Crawford and his home was somewhere in the
Far West. He was big and good-looking, and the Boston papers mentioned
him as one of the most promising backs on the Harvard Freshman eleven.
Next year, so the sporting writers opined, he would almost certainly
make the Varsity team. Most of Mary-'Gusta's feminine friends and
acquaintances rated him "perfectly splendid" and regarded Edna Keith
with envious eyes.

This morning both he and the Keith girl were arrayed in the gayest of
summer regalia. Young Smith's white flannel trousers were carefully
creased, his blue serge coat was wit