not informed, as a pickaninny clad only in a long, coarse cotton
shirt. While all eyes were fastened upon him this inglorious
ambassador bolted forth his message:

"Yo' ma say"--his eyes were fixed upon Abner--"ef yo' don' come home,
she gwine come after yo'--an' cut yo' into inch pieces wid a rawhide
when she git yo'. Dat jest what Miss Hortense say."

As though such a book as _Hints and Helps_ had never existed, Abner
shot for the gate--he was but a hobbledehoy fascinated with the idea
of playing gentleman. But in Ross there were the makings of a man. For
a few half-hearted paces, under the first impulse of horror, he
followed his deserting chief, the laughter of the family, the
unrestrainable guffaws of the negroes, sounding in the rear. But when
Champe's high, offensive giggle, topping all the others, insulted his
ears, he stopped dead, wheeled, and ran to the porch faster than he
had fled from it. White as paper, shaking with inexpressible rage, he
caught and kissed the tittering girl, violently, noisily, before them
all.

The negroes fled--they dared not trust their feelings; even Alicia
sniggered unobtrusively; Grandfather Claiborne chuckled, and Aunt
Missouri frankly collapsed into her rocking-chair, bubbling with
mirth, crying out:

"Good for you, Ross! Seems you did know how to call on the girls,
after all."

But Ross, paying no attention, walked swiftly toward the gate. He had
served his novitiate. He would never be afraid again. With cheerful
alacrity he dodged the stones flung after him with friendly, erratic
aim by the girl upon whom, yesterday afternoon, he had come to make a
social call.

HOW THE WIDOW WON THE DEACON

By William James Lampton ( -1917)

[From Harper's Bazaar, April, 1911; copyright, 1911, by Harper &
Brothers; republished by permission.]

Of course the Widow Stimson never tried to win Deacon Hawkins, nor any
other man, for that matter. A widow doesn't have to try to win a man;
she wins without trying. Still, the Widow Stimson sometimes wondered
why the deacon was so blind as not to see how her fine farm adjoining
his equally fine place on the outskirts of the town might not be
brought under one management with mutual benefit to both parties at
interest. Which one that management might become was a matter of
future detail. The widow knew how to run a farm successfully, and a
large farm is not much more difficult to run than one of half the
size. She had also had one husb