et's done give offense."

One day shortly after that, when Joe came unexpectedly into the house
he surprised Alexander attired as he had never before seen her--in the
skirts of her own sex.

"Fer ther Lord's sake," exclaimed the boy. "Thet's ther fust time I
ever seed ye in petticoats. Looks like ye must hev on a half score of
'em."

"Like es not hit's ther last time ye'll ever see hit, too," retorted
Alexander hotly while her cheeks flamed. "Some day I mout hev ter go
down below ter some big town on business. A woman's got ter w'ar these
fool things thar, an' I was practising so's I could larn ter walk with
'em flappin' round my legs."

Yet she walked, for all the alleged difficulty, with an untrameled and
regal ease. With a sweep of hauteur she left the grinning boy and when
she returned a few minutes later she was breeched and booted as usual.

Sometimes, in these days, she went to a crest from which the view
reached off for leagues over the valley and beyond that over ridge upon
ridge of hilltops. There she thought of many things and was very
lonely. She could not have worded it but, deep in her heart, she felt
the outcry of the Spring voice: "Make me anything but neuter when the
sap begins to stir."

But how could this be any love-impulse in Alexander? Love, she had
always heard, must fix itself upon some one endearing object and lay
its glamor over definite features.

The most magnificent figure of a man she had ever seen often reared
itself in her thought-pictures with its six feet six of straight limbed
strength, its eagle-like keenness of eye, and its self-confident
bearing.

"Ef I could really be a man," she told herself, "I'd love ter be a man
like ther Halloway feller--ef only he wasn't so plum dirty and raggedy."

One day on her way back from the fields she saw a tall figure loafing
near the front door of her house and, at that distance, she thought
that it was Halloway. It stood so tall and straight that it must be,
but that was because the setting sun was in her eyes and the man showed
only in silhouette. So seen Jerry O'Keefe--for it proved to be
Jerry--suffered little by comparison with any man she knew--except
Halloway.

But Alexander did not greet him with any great warmth. She was angry
with herself because her heart had started suddenly to pounding at the
instant when she had imagined this man to be the other. She was angry,
too, with Jerry for disappointing her.

So she n