Dixie Hart

rofound stillness of the air, the vast quietude of the mountain foliage an

sleep, sleep, sleep till doomsday," she said to herself. "I wish I didn't have to get up. I'd like to ta

s, and the lusty crowing of her roosters in their answering calls to neighboring fo

to sleep; they've had their fill through the night, while I had

l well-water, and, with a coarse towel which hung from a nail on the door-jamb,

the animals are fed. The older folks get, the earlier they go to bed and the earlier they rise. Heaven only knows where it will end. If mine could g

and it came from the open window of a tiny room with a

hat is it

ed by dishevelled iron-gray hair, appeared above the window-sill. "I just wanted to kn

n's rays would dry it. "She says she sat too long at the spring yesterday. I got up and rubbed her arms and

said, in her plaintive tone, "but

my patient and let her grin and bear her pain while I was trotting you back to bed and making you lie th

you are feeding," Mrs. Hart said. "Mandy nearly

egging whiskey for somebody else. You let that coffee-pot alone. The last time you tried your hand at it you put

r at Carlton, and left enough already made for dinner, I accidentally spilled it, and me and Mandy we

for it that you wanted to talk all night. Oh, you two are a funny lot! But you've

re over the yard like a sower of grain till the voices of the fowls had ceased and they had fled from the porch. Then she took up a pail of swill in the kitchen and bore it down to a pen containing a couple of fat pigs and emptied it into their wooden trough. Going into a little corn-crib adjoining the stable and wagon-shed, she brought out a bucketful of wheat-bran and fe

d to the wants of the half-blind woman and the all but helpless aunt. The biscuits she had baked were light and brown as autumnal leaves, the eggs fried with bacon

rtrace, the widowed aunt, remarked. "I hope yo

do but to look out for number one. See here, you two women don't seem to be able to look ahead. I've paid for half of this farm in the last three years, and in two more I'll own it. It is a good thing as it stands, but when I'm plumb out of debt we'll take it easy and set back in the shade once in a while. Alf Henley is a keen trader and knows what value

them away in the safe with perforated tin doors, which was the chief piece of furniture in the room, when the front gate ope

ked into the kitchen to say. "She's got on a new musli

and me are invited to spend the day over at Treadwell's. You know the new lumber-camp is there, and there's some dandy fellows working at it. They are going to give a dance, an' told

Dixie's age. She was thin, inclined

audily flowered hat with its tinsel ornaments and flowing pink ribbons. She knew full well that her neighbor had come for the sole purpose of showing h

ixie said. "It's going to be a f

" Miss Wade asked, turning

ts you," Dixie answered, touchi

ou'd look powerful funny walking along kicking up the skirt behind. With a veil on nobody could tell whether you was going

"I was a little afraid of that myself, and m

er parent, who frowningly hovered on the verge of another criticism. "It is the way you've

u ought to have got you a new sash to go with the muslin; weak-eyed as I am, I can see the dirty, faded edges agin the new cloth. The two don't go toge

ent climbed into her fine face as her mother, accompan

call, Dixie went to her mother, who stood in the yard under

as she leaned on the smooth handle of the hoe she was goin

ou was missing something awful grand. If I hadn't left the kitchen I wouldn't have stopped with what I said about her flimsy dress. I'd have told her that if she'd stay at home more, and keep the holes in her stockings darned, and her underclothes cleaner, she'd stand a better chance roping in some fool man. I'm plain and outspoken, and I

er's love, and her eyes were moist as she put a caressing hand on the gray locks of the little woman. "We are going to s

eined hand was raised to the dim eyes. "I can't stand to see that

actly what she would say, but Hank Bradley met me on the way home yesterday an

to take you?" cried Mrs. H

t like him. I can't stand him. He's a bad man, mother-a gambler, a drunkard, and an idler. He doesn't care

times drew her. "I know what he is well enough, but you are able to take care of yourself, and you lose so many chances by b

ey weeds, and I'm off now. You go back in the house and set down and don't talk about the

she was giving relief as she smoothly cut away the tenaciously encroaching weeds and deep-rooted grass, the heaviest bunches of which she took up and threshed against the hoe-handle and left in the sun to die lest they be revived by some shower which would beat their roots into the mel

ncle's home in lieu of any other that was available. He had made trips to the West and had remained away for indefinite periods, the last being the time he had come home with the carelessly announced death of his companion, Dick Wrinkle. The uncle and nephew were an incongruous pair: old Welborne, with his miserly grasp on the vitals of half the county, and the devil-may-care Bradley, whose wild ways made him the constant talk of the community. Old Silas gave no thought to the fellow's reform. As the administrato

s turning to work homeward on another, when the branches of the bushes of a

upon it. "Working here like a corn-field nigger in sun hot enough to bake a potato, when you could have

hood of her bonnet

o other time to do this work. You know your uncle well enough to un

nd, with his gun across his lap, he began to twist his stiff brown mustache, while his dark eyes rested

hiver every time that old man meets me if I wasn't in his clutch. I ain't afraid of anybody else, but I am of him, and why? Because he's got me where he can do as he likes with

egin to know your power; you could do as you like in this world, if you only would. You are the best-looking girl in the county, and you grow prettier every day. The blood of life is in your vein

at a weed near a stalk of cotton. "I know what I am well enough. I was born with a load on me, a

d his feet to the ground on her side of the fence and leaned his gun agains

back porch now. She'll hang out a towel in a minute. That's the signal

l walk ove

ou mus

hy

ther you wouldn

nd day. I didn't come out to shoot anything this morning. I simply couldn't get over the way you turned me down yesterday. I lay awake last night thinking about it, and so I waited for you

oss her shoulder. "I must go. Don't follow me, Hank. I don

this evening, after supper

ave the house after dar

you? You are already a slave to them. Well,

with a smile, but s

e mad at me by the twitching of-Do you know, Dixie, you have the most maddening mout

I'll tell you now in dead earnest, Hank, you must never try th

in your grip," he jested, with a th

rate look on his face. "I simply can't quit thinking about her. I've got staying qualities, and no man ever gained h