e tanks.
I wanted to have a windmill, but the engine works faster. It's kind of
hot, ma'am, and if you'll come in and set down I reckon me wife's got
her hair--"

"Wah! Wah! Wah!" came in a crescendo from the bedroom.

Sundown straightened his shoulders. "Gee Gosh, he's gone and give it
away, already!"

Corliss and his wife glanced at their host inquisitively.

"Me latest improvement," said Sundown, bowing, as Anita, a plump brown
baby on her arm, opened the bedroom door and stood bashfully looking at
the strangers.

"And me wife," he added.

Corliss bowed, but Margery rushed to Anita and held out her arms. "Oh,
let me take him!" she cried. "What big brown eyes! Let me hold him!
I'll be awfully careful! Isn't he sweet!"

They moved to the living-room where Anita and Margery sat side by side
on the couch with the baby absorbing all their attention.

Sundown stalked about the room, his hands in his pockets, vainly
endeavoring to appear very mannish and unconcerned, but his eye roved
unceasingly to the baby. He was the longest and most upstanding
six-feet-four of proud father that Margery or her husband had ever had
the pleasure of meeting.

"He's got Neeter's eyes--and--and her--complexion, but he's sure got me
style. He measures up two-feet-six by the yardstick what we got with
buyin' a case of bakin'-soda, and he ain't a yearlin' yet. I don't
just recollec' the day but I reckon Neeter knows."

"He's great!" exclaimed Corliss. "Isn't he, Margery?"

"He's just the cutest little brown baby!" said Margery, hugging the
plump little body.

"He--he ain't so _turruble_ brown," asserted Sundown. "'Course, he's
tanned up some, seein' we keep him outside lots. I'm kind o' tanned up
meself, and I reckon he takes after me."

"He has a head shaped just like yours," said Margery, anxious to please
the proud father.

"Then," said Sundown solemnly, "he's goin' to be a pole."

Anita, proud of her offspring, her husband, her neat and clean home,
laughed softly, and held out her arms for the baby. With a kick and a
struggle the young Sundown wriggled to her arms and snuggled against
her, gravely inspecting the pink roses on his mother's white dress.
They were new to him. He was more used to blue gingham. The roses
were interesting.

"Yes, Billy's me latest improvement," said Sundown, anxious to assert
himself in view of the presence of so much femininity and a
correspondingly seeming lack of vital int