party in the big barn, in the twilight, and to have her
share of the unpacking and arranging, and the excitement of arriving
wagons and groups. The great supper of cold chicken and boiled eggs and
fruit and pickles, the fifty varieties of cake, would be spread
downstairs; and upstairs the musicians would be tuning their
instruments as early as seven o'clock, and the eager boys and girls
trying their steps, and changing cards. And then there would be
feasting and laughing and talking, and, above all, dancing until dawn!

"Beg pardon, Johnnie?" she stammered.

"Well, looks like some one round here is in love, or something!" said
Johnnie, freshly. "I never had it that bad, did you, Ellen? Ellen's
been telling me how you're fixed, Mary Bell," she went on with deep
concern, "and I was suggestin' that you run over to the general store,
and ask Mis' Rowe--or I should say, Mis' Bates," she corrected herself
with a grin, and the girls laughed--"if she won't sleep at your house
tonight. Chess'll tend store. It'll be something fierce if you don't
go, Mary Bell, so you run along and ask the bride!" laughed Johnnie.

"I believe I would," approved Ellen, and the girls accordingly crossed
the grassy, uneven street to the store.

An immense gray-haired woman was in the doorway.

"Well, is it ribbon or stockings, or what?" said she, smiling. "The
place has gone crazy! There ain't going to be a soul here but me
to-night."

Mary Bell was silent. Ellen spoke.

"Chess ain't going, is he?" she asked.

The old woman shook with laughter.

"Chess ain't nothing but a regular kid," she said. "He was dying to go,
but he knew I couldn't, and he never said a word. Finally, my boy Tom
and his wife, and Len and Josie and the children, they all drove by on
their way to Pitcher's; and Len--he's a good deal older'n Chess, you
know--he says to me, 'You'd oughter leave Chess come along with the
rest of us, ma; jest because he's married ain't no reason he's forgot
how to dance!' Well, I burst right out laughing, and I says, 'Why
didn't he say he wanted to go?' and Chess run upstairs for his other
suit, and off they all went!"

There was nothing for it, then, but to wait for Lew Dinwoodie and the
news from Aunt Mat.

Mary Bell walked slowly back through the fragrant lanes, passed now and
then by a surrey loaded with joyous passengers already bound for
Pitcher's barn. She was at her own gate, when a voice calling her
whisked her about as if by