t mistakes. I think it was
just fine of you to make him foreman here! If Phenie would only be nice
to him, instead of turning up her nose the way she does! You see
yourself how she treats Ford, and I just think it's a shame! I think
he's just splendid!"

"She don't treat him any worse than he does her," observed Mason, just
to the core. "Seems to me, if I was single, and a girl as pretty as
Jo--"

"Well, I'm glad Ford has got spunk enough not to care," Mrs. Kate
interposed hastily. "Phenie's pretty, of course--but it takes more than
that to attract a man like Ford. You can't expect him to like her when
she won't look at him, hardly; it makes me feel terribly, because he's
sure to think it's because he--I've tried to make her see that it isn't
right to condemn a man because he has made one mistake. He ought to be
encouraged, instead of being made to feel that he is a--an outcast,
practically. And--"

"Jo don't like Ford, because she's stuck on Dick," stated a shrill,
positive young voice behind them, and Mrs. Kate turned sharply upon her
offspring. "They was waving hands to each other just now, through the
window. I seen 'em," Buddy finished complacently. "Dick was down fixing
the bridge, and--"

"Buddy, you run right out and play! You must not listen to older people
and try to talk about some-thing you don't understand."

"Aw, I understand them two being stuck on each other," Buddy maintained
loftily. "And I seen Dick--"

"Chase yourself outdoors, like your mother said; and don't butt in on--"

"Chester!" reproved Mrs. Kate, waving Buddy out of the kitchen. "How
can you expect the child to learn good English, when you talk to him
like that? Run along, Buddy, and play like a good boy." She gave him a
little cake to accelerate his departure and to turn his mind from
further argument, and after he was gone she swung the discussion to
Buddy and his growing tendency toward grappling with problems beyond his
seven years. Also, she pointed out the necessity for choosing one's
language carefully in his presence.

Mason, therefore, finished wiping the dishes almost in silence, and left
the house as soon as he was through, with the feeling that women were
not by nature intended to be really companionable. He had, for instance,
been struck with the humorous side of Ford and Josephine's perfectly
ridiculous antipathy, and had lingered in the kitchen because of a
half-conscious impulse to enjoy the joke with some one. And