ried on one piece of jewelry after
another, exclaiming, admiring, arguing, then the mother realized with a
start that meal time was near and that the menfolks would soon be home.
Leaving Allie to entertain their guest, she hurried out, and the sound
of splitting kindling, the clatter of stove lids, the rattle of
utensils came from the kitchen.

Gray retired to the patent rocker, Miss Briskow settled herself upon a
straight-backed chair and folded her capable hands in her lap; an
oppressive silence fell upon the room. Evidently the duties of hostess
lay with crushing weight upon the girl, for her face became stony, her
cheeks paled, her eyes glazed; the power of speech completely failed
her and she answered Gray with nods or shakes of her head. The most
that he could elicit from her were brief "yeps" and "nopes." It was not
unlike a "spirit reading," or a ouija-board seance. He told himself, in
terms of the oil fields, that here was a dry well--that the girl was a
"duster." Having exhausted the usual commonplace topics in the course
of a monologue that induced no reaction whatever, he voiced a perfectly
natural remark about the wonder of sudden riches. He was, in a way,
thinking aloud of the changes wrought in drab lives like the Briskows'
by the discovery of oil. He was surprised when Allegheny responded:

"Ma and me stand it all right, but it's an awful strain on Pa," said
she.

"Indeed?"

The girl nodded. "He's got _more_ nutty notions."

Gray endeavored to learn the nature of Pa's recently acquired
eccentricities, but Allie was flushing and paling as a result of her
sudden excursion into the audible. Eventually she trembled upon the
verge of speech once more, then she took another desperate plunge.

"He says folks are going to laugh _at_ us or _with_ us, and--and rich
people have got to _act rich_. They got to be elegant." She laughed
loudly, abruptly, and the explosive nature of the sound startled her as
greatly as it did her hearer. "He's going to get somebody to teach
Buddy and me how to behave."

"I think he's right," Gray said, quietly.

"Why, he's sent to Fort Worth for a piano, already, and for a lady to
come out for a coupla days and show me how to play it!" There was
another black hiatus in the conversation. "We haven't got a spare room,
but--I'm quick at learnin' tunes. She could bunk in with me for a night
or two."

Gray eyed the speaker suspiciously, but it was evident that she was in
sober ea