le. A
caller, Ross dared not use his voice to shout nor his legs to run
toward them.

"Why don't you go and talk to the girls, Rossie?" Aunt Missouri asked,
in the kindness of her heart. "Don't be noisy--it's Sunday, you
know--and don't get to playing anything that'll dirty up your good
clothes."

Ross pressed his lips hard together; his heart swelled with the rage
of the misunderstood. Had the card been in his possession, he would,
at that instant, have laid it on Aunt Missouri without a qualm.

"What is it?" demanded the old gentleman, a bit testily.

"The girls want to hear you read, father," said Aunt Missouri,
shrewdly; and she got up and trotted on short, fat ankles to the girls
in the arbor. The three returned together, Alicia casting curious
glances at the uncomfortable youths, Champe threatening to burst into
giggles with every breath.

Abner sat hard on his cap and blushed silently. Ross twisted his hat
into a three-cornered wreck.

The two girls settled themselves noisily on the upper step. The old
man read on and on. The sun sank lower. The hills were red in the west
as though a brush fire flamed behind their crests. Abner stole a
furtive glance at his companion in misery, and the dolor of Ross's
countenance somewhat assuaged his anguish. The freckle-faced boy was
thinking of the village over the hill, a certain pleasant white house
set back in a green yard, past whose gate, the two-plank sidewalk ran.
He knew lamps were beginning to wink in the windows of the neighbors
about, as though the houses said, "Our boys are all at home--but Ross
Pryor's out trying to call on the girls, and can't get anybody to
understand it." Oh, that he were walking down those two planks,
drawing a stick across the pickets, lifting high happy feet which
could turn in at that gate! He wouldn't care what the lamps said then.
He wouldn't even mind if the whole Claiborne family died laughing at
him--if only some power would raise him up from this paralyzing spot
and put him behind the safe barriers of his own home!

The old man's voice lapsed into silence; the light was becoming too
dim for his reading. Aunt Missouri turned and called over her shoulder
into the shadows of the big hall: "You Babe! Go put two extra plates
on the supper-table."

The boys grew red from the tips of their ears, and as far as any one
could see under their wilting collars. Abner felt the lump of gum come
loose and slip down a cold spine. Had their