no patience with sech."

"Her daughter won't be able to halter-break these wild colts."

"Didn't I say that Alethea-Belle took after her father? She must hev
consid'able snap an' nerve, fer she's put in the last year, sence
Abram died, sellin' books in this State."

"A book agent?"

"Yes, sir, a book agent."

If Mrs. Spafford had said road agent, which means highwayman in
California, we could not have been more surprised. A successful book
agent must have the hide of a rhinoceros, the guile of a serpent, the
obstinacy of a mule, and the persuasive notes of a nightingale.

"If Miss Buchanan has been a book agent, she'll do," said Ajax.

* * * * *

She arrived at Paradise on the ramshackle old stage-coach late one
Saturday afternoon. Ajax and I carried her small hair-trunk into the
ranch-house; Mrs. Spafford received her. We retreated to the corrals.

"She'll never, never do," said Ajax.

"Never," said I.

Alethea-Belle Buchanan looked about eighteen; and her face was white
as the dust that lay thick upon her grey linen cloak. Under the cloak
we had caught a glimpse of a thin, slab-chested figure. She wore
thread gloves, and said "I thank you" in a prim, New England accent.

"Depend upon it, she's had pie for breakfast ever since she was born,"
said Ajax, "and it's not agreed with her. She'll keep a foothill
school in order just about two minutes--and no longer!"

At supper, however, she surprised us. She was very plain-featured, but
the men--the rough teamsters, for instance--could not keep their eyes
off her. She was the most amazing mixture of boldness and timidity I
had ever met. We were about to plump ourselves down at table, for
instance, when Miss Buchanan, folding her hands and raising her eyes,
said grace; but to our first questions she replied, blushing, in timid
monosyllables.

After supper, Mrs. Spafford and she washed up. Later, they brought
their sewing into the sitting-room. While we were trying to thaw the
little schoolmarm's shyness, a mouse ran across the floor. In an
instant Miss Buchanan was on her chair. The mouse ran round the room
and vanished; the girl who had been sent to Paradise to keep in order
the turbulent children of the foothills stepped down from her chair.

"I'm scared to death of mice," she confessed. My brother Ajax scowled.

"Fancy sending that whey-faced little coward--here!" he whispered to
me.

"Have you taught school before?" I asked.