EXPERIMENT

IX. UNCLE JAP'S LILY

X. WILKINS AND HIS DINAH

XI. A POISONED SPRING

XII. THE BABE

XIII. THE BARON

XIV. JIM'S PUP

XV. MARY

XVI. OLD MAN BOBO'S MANDY

XVII. MINTIE

XVIII. ONE WHO DIED

XIX. A RAGAMUFFIN OF THE FOOTHILLS

XX. DENNIS

* * * * *

I

ALETHEA-BELLE

In the early eighties, when my brother Ajax and I were raising cattle
in the foothills of Southern California, our ranch-house was used as a
stopping-place by the teamsters hauling freight across the Coast
Range; and after the boom began, while the village of Paradise was
evolving itself out of rough timber, we were obliged to furnish all
comers with board and lodging. Hardly a day passed without some
"prairie schooner" (the canvas-covered wagon of the squatter) creaking
into our corral; and the quiet gulches and canons where Ajax and I had
shot quail and deer began to re-echo to the shouts of the children of
the rough folk from the mid-West and Missouri. These "Pikers," so
called, settled thickly upon the sage-brush hills to the south and
east of us, and took up all the land they could claim from the
Government. Before spring was over, we were asked to lend an old
_adobe_ building to the village fathers, to be used as a
schoolhouse, until the schoolhouse proper was built. At that time a
New England family of the name of Spafford was working for us. Mrs.
Spafford, having two children of her own, tried to enlist our
sympathies.

"I'm kinder sick," she told us, "of cookin' an' teachin'; an' the hot
weather's comin' on, too. You'd oughter let 'em hev that old
_adobe_."

"But who will teach the children?" we asked.

"We've fixed that," said Mrs. Spafford. "'Tain't everyone as'd want to
come into this wilderness, but my auntie's cousin, Alethea-Belle
Buchanan, is willin' to take the job."

"Is she able?" we asked doubtfully.

"She's her father's daughter," Mrs. Spafford replied. "Abram Buchanan
was as fine an' brave a man as ever preached the Gospel. An' clever,
too. My sakes, he never done but one foolish thing, and that was when
he merried his wife."

"Tell us about her," said that inveterate gossip, Ajax.

Mrs. Spafford sniffed.

"I seen her once--that was once too much fer me. One o' them
lackadaisical, wear-a-wrapper-in-the-mornin', soft, pulpy Southerners.
Pretty--yes, in a spindlin', pink an' white soon-washed-out pattern,
but without backbone. I've