ch to illustrate her vigorous and persuasive
remarks.

"Now, I am glad you have come down, honeybunch," she exclaimed at sight of
me. "Here's a bale of clothes and a bale of men, and nobody can seem to
match 'em up suitable. I have at last got Bud Beesley here into a dead
match for his beauty, if I do say it of my own son. Just look at him!" As
she spoke she stood off from him and folded her plump hands across her wide
waist in motherly rapture.

And Bud, with his violet eyes and yellow shock, _was_ beautiful in the
"custom-made," fifteen-dollar gray cheviot, despite his red ears. All the
Harpeth Valley farmer folk have French Cavalier, English gentle, and Irish
good blood in them, with mighty little else and, as in the case of Bud and
Polly Corn-tassel, when clothed in garments of the world, it comes to the
surface with startling effect. Bud could have put on a gray slouch hat with
either a crimson or an orange band and walked into any good Eastern college
fraternity or club he might have chosen.

"Shoo, Mother," said Bud as he turned around for my admiration, not
surfeited with that of his mother.

"I only hope some town girl won't catch him like your mother did William,"
said Aunt Mary, with a laugh that ended in a little sigh that only I heard.
Somehow I _will_ feel psychically akin to Bud and Polly.

[Illustration: And Bud was beautiful in the "custom-made" fifteen-dollar
gray cheviot with his violet eyes and yellow smock, in spite of his red
ears]

"Town girls are all movie-struck and don't want a man if a butter-paddle
goes along with him," said Bud, with a laugh that was echoed from the
overalled group.

"Yes, but Miss Nancy here has outsold any woman in Riverfield for cash on
eggs and chickens before May first," said Mr. Spain as he picked up a gray
purple coat from the top of the pile on the counter.

"She'll marry and go away in a big car, too," said Bud, as he looked down
and flecked an imaginary speck from the sleeve of his new coat. Something
in his voice made me determine to introduce Belle Proctor's little
sixteen-year-old sister to Bud in the near future. The kiddie spends half
her time away from school in Bess's conservatory with Mr. G. Bird's
non-resident family, and I think it will do her good to come out in the
field and play with Bud. She is frail and too slight.

"Say, Miss Nancy, what do you think of this here purple to set me off?"
asked Mr. Spain, as he held up the garment of his wife