ird crossing of the
Winnowoc. It is bank-full now from the rains. I stopped on that high
fill and watched the train down below me creeping out on the trestle
above the creek. When it got across and went crawling into the cut on
this side I came on, too. I had my hands full then making this big gun
of a car climb that muddy, slippery hill that the railroad cuts through.
But I'd rather climb than creep any old day."

"Jerry Swaim," Mrs. Darby cried, staring up at her niece in amazement,
"do you mean to say you drove out alone over that sideling, slippery
bluff road? But you wouldn't be Lesa Swaim's daughter if you weren't
taking chances. You are your mother's own child, if there ever was one."

"Well, I should hope I am, since I've got to be classified somewhere. I
came because I wanted to," Jerry declared, with the finality of complete
excuse in her tone. All her life what Jerry Swaim had wanted was
abundant reason for her having. "It was dreadfully hot and sticky in the
city, and I knew it would be the bottom deep of mugginess on that
crowded Winnowoc train. The last time I came out here on it I had to sit
beside a dreadful big Dutchman who had an old hen and chickens in a
basket under his feet. He had had Limburger cheese for his dinner and
had used his whiskers for a napkin to catch the crumbs. Ugh!" Jerry gave
a shiver of disgust at the recollection. "An old lady behind us had
'_sky_-atick rheumatiz' and wouldn't let the windows be opened. I'd
rather have any kind of 'rheumatiz' than Limburger for the same length
of time. The Winnowoc special ought to carry a parlor coach from the
city and set it off at 'Eden' like it used to do. The agent let me play
in it whenever I wanted to when I was a youngster. I'm never going to
ride on any train again unless I go in a Pullman."

The girl struck her small gloved fist, like a spoiled child, against the
steering-wheel of her luxuriously appointed car, but her winsome smile
was all-redeeming as she looked down at her aunt standing in the doorway
of the rose-arbor.

"Come in here, Geraldine Swaim. I want to talk to you." Mrs. Darby's
affectionate tones carried also a note of command.

"Means business when she 'Geraldine Swaims' me," Jerry commented,
mentally, as she gave the car to the "Eden" man-of-all-work and followed
her aunt to a seat inside the blossom-covered retreat, where the pearl
shuttle began to grow tatting again beneath the thin, busy fingers.

It always pleas