apple-blossom hat dome off, 'n' the
baker-man put it on, 'n' took consid'able time over it, 'n' pulled her
ear 'n' pinched her cheek when he got through; an' that was jest the
blamed minute we ketched sight of 'em. I pulled Dixie off, but I was
too late. He give a groan I shall remember to my dyin' day, 'n' then
he plunged out o' the crowd 'n' through the gate like a streak o'
lightnin'. We follered, but land! we couldn't find him, an' true as I
set here, I never expected to see him alive agin. But I did; I forgot
all about one thing, you see, 'n' that was the baby. If it wa'n't no
attraction to its mother, I guess he cal'lated it needed a father all
the more. Anyhow, he turned up in the field yesterday mornin', ready for
work, but lookin' as if he 'd hed his heart cut out 'n' a piece o' lead
put in the place of it."

"I don't seem as if she 'd 'a' ben brazen enough to come back so near
him," said Steve.

"Wall, I don't s'pose she hed any idea o' Dixie's bein' at a circus over
Wareham jest then; an' ten to one she didn't care if the whole town seen
her. She wanted to get rid of him, 'n' she didn't mind how she did it.
Dixie ain't one of the shootin' kinds, an' anyhow, Fiddy Maddox wa'n't
one to look ahead; whatever she wanted to do, that she done, from the
time she was knee high to a grasshopper. I've seen her set down by a
peck basket of apples, 'n' take a couple o' bites out o' one, 'n' then
heave it fur 's she could heave it 'n' start in on another, 'n' then
another; 'n' 't wa'n't a good apple year, neither. She'd everlastin'ly
spile 'bout a dozen of 'em 'n' smaller 'bout two mouthfuls. Doxy Morton,
now, would eat an apple clean down to the core, 'n' then count the seeds
'n' put 'em on the window-sill to dry, 'n' get up 'n' put the core
in the stove, 'n' wipe her hands on the roller towel, 'n' take up her
sewin' agin; 'n' if you 've got to be cuttin' 'nitials in tree bark an'
writin' of 'em in the grass with a stick like you 've ben doin' for the
last half-hour, you 're blamed lucky to be doin' _D_'s not _F_'s, like
Dixie there!"

*****

It was three o'clock in the afternoon. The men had dropped work and
gone to the circus. The hay was pronounced to be in a condition where
it could be left without much danger; but, for that matter, no man would
have stayed in the field to attend to another man's hay when there was a
circus in the neighborhood.

Dixie was mowing on alone, listening as in a dream to that sub