aking a decided head. "Yo're too
lucky. Oh, lookit, lookit!"

CHAPTER X

THE BACK PORCH

Racey's gaze casually and uninterestedly followed Swing's pointing
finger. Immediately his eye brightened and he sat up with a jerk.

"I'll shove the door a li'l farther open," said Swing, making as if to
rise.

"Sit still," hissed Racey, pulling down his friend with one hand and
endeavouring to smooth his own hair with the other. "Yo're all right,
and the door's all right. I'm going over there in a minute and if
yo're good I'll take you with me."

"Over there" was the back porch of the Blue Pigeon Store. Swing's
exclamations and laudable desire to see better were called forth by
the sudden appearance on the back porch of two girls. One was Miss
Blythe. The other was Miss Molly Dale.

There were two barrel chairs on the porch. Miss Blythe picked up a
piece of embroidery on a frame from the seat of one of the chairs and
sat down. Molly Dale seated herself in the other chair, crossed her
knees, and swung a slim, booted leg. From the breast pocket of her
boy's gray flannel shirt she produced a long, narrow strip of white to
which appeared to be fastened a small dark object. She held the strip
of white in her left hand. Her right hand held the dark object and
with it began to make a succession of quick, wavy, hooky dabs at one
end of the strip of white.

"First time I ever seen anybody trying to knit without needles," said
the perplexed Swing.

"That ain't knitting," said the superior Racey. "That's tatting."

"Tatting?"

"Tatting."

"What's it for?"

"Lingery." Racey pronounced the word to rhyme with "clingery."

"Lingery?"

"Lingery."

"What's lingery?"

"Lingery is clo'es."

"Clo'es, huh. Helluva funny name for clo'es. Why don't you say clo'es
then instead of this here now lingery?"

"Because lingery is a certain _kind_ of clo'es, you ignorant Jack.
Petticoats, and the like o' that. Don't you know nothin'?"

"I know yo're lying, that's what I know. Yo're bluffing, you hear me
whistlin'. You dunno no more about it than I do. You can't tell me
petticoats is made out of a strip of white stuff less'n a half-inch
wide. I've seen too many washin's hangin' on the lines, I have. Yeah.
And done too many. When I was a young one my ma would tie an apron
round my neck, slap me down beside a tubful of clo'es, and tell me to
fly to it. Petticoats! Petticoats, feller, is made of yards and yards
and yards like a