happily, this was moonshine.

"Kiss me, little boy!" she said.

"I won't!" exclaimed the shocked and indignant Hedrick, edging
uneasily away from her.

"Let's play," she said cheerfully.

"Play what?"

"I like chickens. Did you know I like chickens?"

The rather singular lack of connection in her remarks struck him
as a misplaced effort at humour.

"You're having lots of fun with me, aren't you?" he growled.

She instantly moved close to him and lifted her face to his.

"Kiss me, darling little boy!" she said.

There was something more than uncommonly queer about this
stranger, an unearthliness of which he was confusedly perceptive,
but she was not without a curious kind of prettiness, and her pale
gold hair was beautiful. The doomed lad saw the moon shining
through it.

"Kiss me, darling little boy!" she repeated.

His head whirled; for the moment she seemed divine.

George Washington used profanity at the Battle of Monmouth.
Hedrick kissed her.

He instantly pushed her away with strong distaste. "There!" he
said angrily. "I hope that'll satisfy you!" He belonged to his
sex.

"Kiss me some more, darling little boy!" she cried, and flung her
arms about him.

With a smothered shout of dismay he tried to push her off, and
they fell from the fence together, into the yard, at the cost of
further and almost fatal injuries to the lady's apparel.

Hedrick was first upon his feet. "Haven't you got _any_ sense?"
he demanded.

She smiled unwaveringly, rose (without assistance) and repeated:
"Kiss me some more, darling little boy!"

"No, I won't! I wouldn't for a thousand dollars!"

Apparently, she did not consider this discouraging. She began to
advance endearingly, while he retreated backward. "Kiss me
some----"

"I won't, I tell you!" Hedrick kept stepping away, moving in a
desperate circle. He resorted to a brutal formula: "You make me
sick!"

"Kiss me some more, darling lit----"

"I won't!" he bellowed. "And if you say that again I'll----"

"Kiss me some more, darling little boy!" She flung herself at him,
and with a yell of terror he turned and ran at top-speed.

She pursued, laughing sweetly, and calling loudly as she ran,
"Kiss me some more, darling little boy! Kiss me some more, darling
little boy!"

The stricken Hedrick knew not whither to direct his flight: he
dared not dash for the street with this imminent tattered
incubus--she was almost upon him--and he frantically made for the