did. She was too easy,
that was the trouble.

"Well," said Frank, astonished, "you be, for a fact."

He went back down the stairs, and Nelly shut the door. She was hot all
over with impatience about that butter. When it wasn't one thing to keep
her from her work, it was another. Her hair all wet now. And such a job
to dry it!

She heard voices in the kitchen, and the screen-door open. Thank
goodness, Frank was going away! Oh my! Maybe he was going to the
village! He could bring some of the pink mercerized cotton on his way
back. He might as well be of _some_ use in the world. She thrust her
head out of the window. "Frank, Frank, wait a minute!" she called. She
ran back to her work-basket, cut a length from a spool of thread, wound
it around a bit of paper, and went again to the window. "Say, Frank, get
me two spools of cotton to match that, will you, at Warner and Hardy's."

He rode his horse past the big pine, under her window, and stood up in
the stirrups, looking up boldly at her, her hair in thick wet curls
about her face. "I'd do anything for you!" he said jokingly, catching
at the paper she threw down to him.

She slammed the window down hard. How provoking he was! But anyhow she
would have enough thread to feather-stitch that hem. She'd got that much
out of him. The thought made up to her for some of the annoyance of the
morning. She put a towel around her shoulders under her wet hair, and
waited till he was actually out of sight around the bend of the road. It
seemed to her that she saw something stir in the long grass in the
meadow there. Could the woodchucks be getting so close to the house as
that? She'd have to tie Towser up by her lettuce, nights, if they were.

Gracious, there it was thundering, off behind the Rocks! She'd have to
hustle, if she got the butter done before the storm came. When Frank had
really disappeared, she ran downstairs, and rushed out to her churn. She
felt of it anxiously, her face clearing to note that it seemed no warmer
than when she had left it. Maybe it was all right still. She began to
plunge the dasher up and down. Well, it had gone back some, she could
tell by the feel, but not so much, she guessed, but what she could make
it come all right.

As she churned, she thought again of Frank Warner. This was the limit!
He got so on her nerves, she declared to herself she didn't care if he
_never_ danced with her again. She wished she had more spunk, like some
girls, and cou