okin' at her as if she struck me as bein' funny. Well, sir, I kept it
up good an' strong. First thing I knowed, she was beginnin' to look as
though a bee had stung her an' she couldn't find the place. I'd ketch
her stealin' sly glances at me an' she allus found me with a grin on my
face--a good, healthy grin, too.

"There wasn't anything to laugh at, mind you, but she didn't know that.
She got to fixin' her back hair and lookin' worried about her clothes.
'Nen she'd wipe her face to see if the powder was on straight, all the
time wonderin' what in thunder I was laughin' at. If she passed in her
kerridge she'd peep back to see if I was laughin'; and I allus was. I
never failed. All this time I wasn't sayin' a word-jest grinnin' as
though she tickled me half to death. Gradually I begin to be scientific
about it. I got so that when she caught me laughin', I'd try my best to
hide the grin. Course that made it all the worse. She fidgeted an'
squirmed an' got red in the face till it looked like she was pickled.
Doggone, ef she didn't begin to neglect her business as a
great-granddaughter! She didn't have time to lord it over her peasants.
She was too blame busy wonderin' what I was laughin' at.

[Illustration: "It was a wise, discreet old oak"]

"'Nen she begin to look peaked an' thin. She looked like she was seem'
ghosts all the time. That blamed grin of mine pursued her every minute.
Course, she couldn't kick about it. That wouldn't do at all. She jest
had to bear it without grinnin'. There wasn't anything to say. Finally,
she got to stayin' away from the meetin's an' almost quit drivin'
through the town. Everybody noticed the change in her. People said she
was goin' crazy about her hack hair. She lost thirty pounds worryin'
before August, and when September come, the judge had to take her to a
rest cure. They never come back to Tinkletown, an' the judge had to sell
the place fer half what it cost him. Fer two years she almost went into
hysterics when anybody laughed. But it done her good. It changed her
idees. She got over her high an' mighty ways, they say, an' I hear she's
one of the nicest, sweetest old ladies in Boggs City nowadays. But
Blootch Peabody says that to this day she looks flustered when anybody
notices her back hair. The Lord knows I wa'n't laughin' at her hair. I
don't see why she thought so, do you?"

Bonner laughed long and heartily over the experiment; but Rosalie
vigorously expressed her disapproval