. "What did you do?"

"I prayed," answered Eliza in a perfectly practical tone of voice, "and
as I prayed I ran to Mr. Petway as fast as I could. He was filling
molasses cans at the barrel when I got there and they wasn't nobody in
the store, only I seen Bud and Henny peeping from behind the blacksmith
shop and they was right white, they was so skeered by that time. Then I
told him all about it and begged him to let Aunt Prissy have the box of
soap and think he sent it, so her feelings wouldn't get hurted. I told
him I would give him my seventy-five cents from picking peas to pay for
it and that Aunt Prissy cried so when her feelings was hurted, and she
thought so much of him that she kept her frizzes rolled up all day when
she hoped he might be coming that night to see her and got Maw to bake
tea-cakes to pass him out on the front porch and he MIGHT let her have
just that one little box of soap."

"What did he say, child?" asked Mother Mayberry in a voice that was
positively weak from anxiety and suppressed mirth at Eliza's own
account of her management of the outraged lover.

"He didn't say a thing, but he sat down on a cracker box and just
hugged me and laughed until he cried all over my dress and I hugged
back and laughed too, but I didn't know what at. Then he told me that
he didn't ever want Aunt Prissy to know about them bad boys' foolish
joke 'cause he wanted to marry Aunt Prissy and didn't want her to find
out that three young scallawags had to begin his co'ting for him."

"Did he say all that to you, 'Liza honey, are you sure?" asked Mother
Mayberry, beginning to beam with delight at the outcome of the horrible
situation.

"Yes'm, he did, and I went out and brought Bud and 'Lias and Henny in
and he talked to 'em serious until 'Lias cried and Bud got choked
trying not to. Then he give them all a bottle of soda pop and they
ain't never anybody a-going to tell anybody else about it. He made them
boys cross they hearts and bodies not to. I didn't cross mine 'cause I
knew I had to tell you, but I do it now." And Eliza stood up and
solemnly made the mystic sign, thus locking the barn door of her secret
chambers after having quartered the troublesome steed of confidence on
the ranges of Mother Mayberry's conscience.

"Well, 'Liza, a secret oughter always be wrapped up tight and dropped
down the well inside a person, and suppose you and me do it to this
one. And, child, I want to tell you that you did the right