er."

I went to the head of the stairs an' called her, an' she finally stuck
her head out of her room an' sez, "Happy, I just can't wear this thing.
It flaps!"

"Let it flap!" sez I. "You're just like a colt gettin' used to a
single-tree; you won't mind it after the first hour. Let me see how it
looks."

She opens the door an' stands with a queer new look on her face, an'
her cheeks pink as wild roses. I hadn't never seen those cheeks pink up
for anything but fun or anger before, an' it flashed upon me what Friar
Tuck had told Jabez; an' I was willin' to bet that the time would come
when he'd have full as much girl on his hands as any one man could wish.

The waist part of it was loose an' low in the neck an' came to a little
below the knees where the leggin's began. The upper part of the
leggin's which you couldn't see were loose an' easy. Her little legs
looked cute an' shapely, an' her smooth, round throat came up from the
open neck mighty winnin'--the whole thing was just right an' I sez to
her, "Why, Barbie, this is the finest rig you ever had on, an' you're
as purty as a picture."

Well, her face went the color of a sunset an' she slammed the door. "If
I was your Dad," sez I to myself, "you'd go back to those buckskins
to-morrow." I waited a moment an' then I began to make fun of her, and
after a while she came out with her teeth set tight together an' we
went down to the dinin' room; but it was the first time I had ever seen
her take an awkward step.

"Now that's what I call a sensible garment," sez Jabez, heartily, an'
then he begun talkin' to me. Jabez had a lot o' wisdom when he kept his
head, an' by the time supper was over Barbie was purty well used to the
feel, an' we all three went for a ride; me ridin' Starlight, Barbie,
Hawkins, an' Jabez a strappin' bay, one of Pluto's colts, an' a beauty.
Well, I'll never forget that ride: you know how tobacco tastes after a
man owns up that he was only jokin' when he swore off; you know how
liquor seems to ooz all through you after you've been out in the alkali
for three months--well, that first ride, after bein' out o' commission
for two years, makes these two sensations something like the affection
a man has for sour-dough bread. Oh, it was glorious! we all felt like a
flock o' birds--hosses an' all. In the first place it was spring, an'
that was excuse enough if the' hadn't been any other; but two of us had
gone into that day not on speakin' terms, an' now t