danger of a flareup because
Halloway always bore himself with entire politeness yet with a courtesy
which did not escape a sort of indulgent patronage; as though the
serious thought of rivalry was absurd.

One day Bud Sellers came by the house. It was after he had been in
jail and Alexander, who was standing on her porch, invited him in.
Slowly and somewhat dubiously he accepted the invitation.

"I hain't seed ye fer quite a spell, Bud," began the girl smilingly,
and with a brick red flush he answered. "Hit took holt on me ergin,
Alexander. Hit war jest actually a-burnin' me up."

She did not ask what he meant by "it." She knew full well and she did
not reproach him. She only inquired, "What happened, Bud?"

"I kep' my pledge ter yer, though." He spoke gruffly, because the
sight of her was burning him up too, with another kind of thirst. "I
went an' hed myself jailed. I reckon hit won't hardly master me ergin
fer a spell."

Alexander felt a lump rising in her throat. Since her awakening she
had not missed the meaning of that look in his eyes. Slowly and
candidly, she asked: "Bud, war hit on account of me? War ye frettin'
over me--not a-keering?"

Sellers looked up in astonishment.

"How did ye know?" he demanded. "I hain't nuver breathed no word ter
ye erbout keerin'. I knowed full well hit warn't no manner of use."

"I'm a woman, now, Bud," she reminded him. "A woman don't need ter be
told some things."

"I knowed hit warn't no use." He only repeated the words, dully, and
Alexander laid a hand on his trembling arm.

"Bud, Bud," she exclaimed self-accusingly. "I wisht I'd stayed a man.
I don't seem ter do nothin' at this woman-game but jest stir up
trouble. I loves ye right dearly, Bud, but hit's ther same fashion
thet I loves my brother Joe--an' I reckon--that hain't what ye're
a-seekin'."

But Bud drew back his shoulders and spoke with a brave assumption of
restored cheerfulness.

"I'm a-seekin' whatever I kin hev," he staunchly declared. "More'n
anything else, 'though, I'm seeking ter see ye happy." He paused then
with a forced smile that, for all his effort, was stiff-lipped, and
said slowly, "I reckon hit'll be either Halloway or Jerry . . . they're
both right upstanding men."

"Sometimes I thinks hit won't be nobody," she declared. "I'd done been
raised up a boy so long thet since I turned back into a gal ergin, ther
only thing I've been plum sartain of air thet I hain't been