.

But I only reads the name of the book out loud, fur to aggervate her. I
had on purty good duds, but I kind of wisht I had on my Injun rig then.
You take the girls that always comes down to see the passenger train
come into the depot in them country towns and that Injun rig of mine and
Looey's always made 'em turn around and look at us agin. I never wisht
I had on them Injun duds so hard before in my life. But I couldn't think
of nothing bright to say, so I jest reads the name of that book over to
myself agin, kind o' grinning like I got a good joke I ain't going to
tell any one.

"You give me my book," she says agin, red as one of them harvest apples,
"or I'll tell Miss Hampton you stole it and she'll have you and your
show arrested."

I reads the name agin. It was "The Lost Heir." I seen I had her good and
teased now, so I says: "It must be one of these here love stories by the
way you take on over it."

"It's not," she says, getting ready to cry. "And what right have you got
in our wood-lot, anyhow?"

"Well," I says, "I was jest about to move on and climb out of it when
you hollered to me from that tree."

"I didn't!" she says. But she was mad because she knowed she HAD spoke
to me first, and she was awful sorry she had.

"I thought I hearn you holler," I says, "but I guess it must of been a
squirrel." I said it kind o' sarcastic like, fur I was still mad with
myself fur being so dumb when we first seen each other. I hadn't no idea
it would hurt her feelings as hard as it did. But all of a sudden she
begins to wink, and her chin trembled, and she turned around short, and
started to walk off slow. She was mad with herself fur being ketched in
a lie, and she was wondering what I would think of her fur being so bold
as to of spoke first to a feller she didn't know.

I got up and follered her a little piece. And it come to me all to oncet
I had teased her too hard, and I was down on myself fur it.

"Say," I says, kind of tagging along beside of her, "here's your old
book."

But she didn't make no move to take it, and her hands was over her face,
and she wouldn't pull 'em down to even look at it.

So I tried agin.

"Well," I says, feeling real mean, "I wisht you wouldn't cry. I didn't
go to make you do that."

She drops her hands and whirls around on me, mad as a wet hen right off.

"I'm not! I'm not!" she sings out, and stamps her feet. "I'm not
crying!" But jest then she loses her holt on herself and