me all these years. I may want to travel after a while, but
I'll always come back to you, Daddy Crow."

"I'm--I'm mighty glad to hear ye say that, Rosie. Ye see--ye see, me an'
your ma kinder learned to love you, an'--an--"

"Why, Daddy Crow, you silly old goose! You're almost crying!"

"What's that? Now, don't talk like that to me, you little
whipper-snapper, er you go to bed in a hurry. I never cried in my life,"
growled Anderson in a great bluster.

"Well, then, let's talk about something else--me, for instance. Do you
know, Daddy Crow, that I'm too strong to live an idle life. There is no
reason why I shouldn't have an occupation. I want to work--accomplish
something."

Anderson was silent a long time collecting his nerves. "You wouldn't
keer to be a female detective, would you?" he asked drily.

CHAPTER X

Rosalie Has Plans of Her Own

"Do be serious, daddy. I want to do something worth while. I could teach
school or--"

"Not much! You ain't cut out fer that job. Don't you know that ever'body
hates school-teachers when they're growed up? Jerusalem, how I still
hate old Rachel Kidwell! An' yet she's bin dead nigh onto thirty years.
She was my first teacher. You wasn't born to be hated by all the boys in
the district. I don't see what put the idee of work inter your head You
got 'bout eight thousand dollars in the bank an'--"

"But I insist that the money is yours, daddy. My fairy godmother paid it
to you for keeping, clothing, and educating me. It is not mine."

"You talk like I was a boardin' school instead o' bein' your guardeen.
No, siree; it's your money, an' that ends it. You git it when you're
twenty-one."

"We'll see, daddy," she replied, a stubborn light in her dark eyes. "But
I want to learn to do something worth while. If I had a million it would
be just the same."

"You'll have something to do when you git married," observed he sharply.

"Nonsense!"

"I s'pose you're goin' to say you never expect to git married. They all
say it--an' then take the first feller 'at comes along."

"I didn't take the first, or the second, or the third, or the--"

"Hold on! Gosh a'mighty, have you had that many? Well, why don't you go
into the matrimonial agent's business? That's an occupation."

"Oh, none of them was serious, daddy," she said naively.

"You could have all of the men in the county!" he declared proudly.
"Only," he added quickly, "it wouldn't seem jest right an' proper."

"Ther