Dixie Hart

various comments were made. He was going to do a man's part and try to put up with the cranky woman he had married, said the men. He was heartily ashamed of himself, said the women. He had got ov

to the post-office, and, needing a sp

longer, as it was, but one little thing I wrote him turned the scale. You know that measly ten-cent circus that was to show here last month got stranded. The performers all quit and footed it home, an' the sheriff levied on the thing, lock, stock, and barrel, an' is to sell it piece by piece at public outcry Saturday week. Alf wrote me that a sale of that sort was exactly in his line, and that

girl answered, thoughtf

a week before with a baby not yet a month old. Allen was a travelling sewing-machine agent, and boarded his wife and child at so

t she and hers might not be wanted any longer. She nursed her fears all the morning, and finally, with the infa

thin, had blue eyes and faded blond hair, used snuff, as was indicated by the brownish deposits

self up and peered at the speaker from the hood of her

don't cry much-in fact, compared to most babies, it's a purty good un. It did cry some just a minute ago, but that wasn't its fault. It was mine. Like a plumb fool, who certainly ought to have had more sense, I was takin' a

ore firmly in the soil, and it was impossible to judge whether there was resentment in the tone. "He's coming back of his own free will, and if he stays he'll pu

dy-made suit of clothes and a scarlet necktie which clashed sharply with his blond hair and mustache. He was almost as young as his wife, and he beamed proudly on the red hu

n' to hear him talk. He drives off every spell of blues I have. He is the beatenest man to get off jokes I ever knowed, to be as old as he is. Just now he walked clean over to Pitman's to tell that crusty old cuss that thar was a cow inside his lot fence, an' when Pitman come down hoppin' mad with his

f the house, when Wrinkle slouched across the grass to them. He was chewing tobacco, and frequently pressed two fingers over his lips and between them spat with con

ttin' you two in on the quiet, but I wouldn't tell Hettie for any amount. You see, this un's a baby joke, an' it may be a tender point with her, not h

?" Allen said. "Well

s comin' in a week or so, I set down to write how glad we was. I was in my room j'inin' your'n at the time, an' all at once it struck me that it would be a royal welcome to greet 'im with some sort o' joke, an' while I was tryin' to study up some'n yore baby rolled out o' the bed an' struck the floor with a thump. It was as quiet as a stick o' wood fer a minute till it ketched its wind, an' then it set up a scream like a Comanchy Injun, an' right thar I got my idea. I determined to write Alf that he'd become the daddy of a bouncin' baby boy. But I had to go about it right, you see, for I knowed Alf would smell a mice if I brought it out bluntlike; so, knowin' that I'd have time to hear from him ag'in before he started, I jest ended my letter by sayin' that I didn't intend to take no hand in the little cold spell betwixt him an' his wife, but that I felt bound to say that af

s. Allen cried, casting a jealous look at her sleep

lly. "Alf has often said I couldn't fool

r," Allen declared-"that

roundabout reasons an' facts, tellin' 'im he'd 'a' had letter after letter about how the baby was thrivin' if he'd just answered Hettie's first official proclamation, and so on