s it or not, he was the rippenest, maddest
man I ever saw in my life when he went to put on his pants and there
were none to put.

I almost rolled off the porch up-stairs, where I was watching. I never
did know before how much a man thinks of his pants.

He soon had Miss Bray and Miss Jones and a lot of the girls out in the
yard, and everybody was talking at once; and then I heard him say:

"But I tell you, Miss Bray, I put 'em here, right on this woodpile. And
where are they? You run this place, and you are responsible for--"

"Not for pants." And Miss Bray's voice was so shrill it sounded like a
broken whistle. "I'm responsible for no man's pants. When a man can't
take care of his pants, he shouldn't have them. Besides, you shouldn't
have left yours in the woodhouse when working in a Female Orphan
Asylum." And she glared so at him that the poor male thing withered, and
blushed real beautiful.

He's a pretty young man, and I felt sorry for him when Miss Bray snapped
so. I certainly did.

"My overalls are my working-pants," he said, real meek-like, and his
voice was trembling so I thought he was going to cry. "It's very strange
that in a place like this a man's clothes are not safe. I thought--"

"Well, you had no business thinking. Next time keep your pants on." And
Miss Bray, who's good on a bluff, pretended like she had been truly
injured, and the poor little painter sat down.

Presently his face changed, as if a thought had come into his mind from
a long way off, and he said, in another kind of voice:

"I beg your pardon, Miss Bray. I believe I know who done it. It's a
friend of mine who tries to be funny every now and then, and calls it
joking. I'll choke his liver out of him!" And he settled himself on the
woodpile to wait until dark before he went home.

If anybody thinks that wedding was slumpy, they think wrong. It was
thrilly. When the bride and groom and the bridesmaids came in, all the
girls were standing in rows on either side of the walk, making an aisle
in between, and they sang a wedding-song I had invented from my heart.

It was to the Lohengrin tune, which is a little wobbly for words, but
they got them in all right, keeping time with their hands. These are the
words:

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Here comes the Bride,
God save the Groom!
And please don't let any chil-i-il-dren come,
For they don't know
How children feel,
Nor do they know how with chil-dren to deal.

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