ng back also. The young city-bred girl had felt no fear
of the strange country fellow in the far-away oak-grove; she had no fear
of this uncouth fisherman in this lonely hidden place; but when she
caught a mere glimpse of this woman's eyes staring at her from under the
shadows of the deep sunbonnet a tremor of real fright shook her hands
grasping the steering-wheel. It passed quickly, however, with the
reappearance of the host of the wayside inn.

"This is delicious," Jerry exclaimed, as the hard scaly hands lifted a
smooth board bearing her meal up to her.

Fried fish, hot corn-bread, baked in husks in the ashes, wild
strawberries with coarse brown sugar sprinkled on them, and a cup of
fresh buttermilk.

The girl ate with the healthy appetite that youth, a long fast, a day in
the open, and a well-cooked meal can create. When she had finished she
laid a silver half-dollar on the board beside the cracked plate.

"'Tain't nuthin'; no, 'tain't nuthin'. I jis' divided with ye," the
fisherman insisted, shrilly.

"Oh, it is worth a dollar to drink this good buttermilk!"

Jerry lifted the cup, a shining silver mug, and turned it in the light.
It was of an old pattern, with a quaint monogram on one side.

"This looks like an heirloom," she thought. "Why should a bear with
cracked plates and iron knives and forks offer me a drink in a silver
cup? There must be a story back of it. Maybe he's a nobleman in
disguise. Well, the disguise is perfect. After all, it's as good as a
novel to live in Kansas."

Jerry slowly sipped the drink as these thoughts ran through her mind.
The meal was helping wonderfully to take the edge off of the tragedy of
the morning. It would overwhelm her again later, but in this shady,
restful solitude it slipped away.

She smiled down at the old man at the thought of him in a story. _Him!_
But the smile went straight to his heart; that was Jerry's gift, making
him drop his board tray and break the cracked plate in his confusion.

"Here's another quarter. That was my fault," Jerry insisted.

"Oh no'm, no'm! 'Tain't nobody's fault." The voice quavered as the
scaly brown hand thrust back the proffered coin.

Jerry could not understand why this creature should refuse her money.
Tipping, to her mind, covered all the obligations her class owed to the
lower strata of the earth's formation.

<tb>

At sunset York Macpherson drove into Ponk's garage.

"Hello, fellow-townsman! You look like a sick man