herself, setting up in the tree like a boy. In her lap was a book she had been

ays, "can I

she says, "so there isn't a

t stands there kind o' dumb like, thinking what a dern purty girl she was, and thinking how dumb I must look, and I felt my face getting red. Doctor Kirby wou

you give me

ketched it, and made like I was going to throw it back at her real h

r my arm and walks away slow with it to where they was a stump a little ways off, not fur from the crick, and sets down with my back to her and opens it. And I was trying all th

wed was her getting out of that tree. An

my book,"

e 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

them harvest apples, "or I'll tell Miss Hampton you

ad her good and teased now, so I says: "It must be one of

ady to cry. "And what right have

o move on and climb out of it when

because she knowed she HAD spoke to me

n 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

d it come to me all to oncet I had teased he

gging along beside of her

nd her hands was over her face, and she w

tried

an, "I wisht you wouldn't cry.

whirls around on me, mad

!" But jest then she loses her holt on herself and busts out and jest n

oncet I liked that girl awful well. And here I'd up and m

, fur I don't feel that-a-way ab

. It hit right into the fork of a limb that hung down over the crick, and it all spread out when it lit, and stuck in that

done? It's out of the town libr

clumb the tree and eased out on that limb as fur as I dast to. And, of course, jest as I got holt of the book, that

, and she was laughing right through it, kind o' like the sun does to one of these here May rainstorms sometimes, and she

rphan she was glad, fur she was one herself. Which Miss Hampton that lived in that house had took her to rai

on a quest! H

gives you a whack over the shoulder with a sword and says: "Arise, Sir Marmeluke, I dub you a night." And then it is legal fur you to go out and rescue people and reform them and spear them if they don't see things your way, and come between husband and wife when they row, and do a heap of good in the world. Wel

s a lucky way to start life, from all she said, that basket way. There was Moses was left out that way, and when he growed up he was made a kind of a president of the hull human race, the same as Ruzevelt, and figgered out the twelve commandments. Martha would of give anything if she could of only been found in a basket like me, I could see that. But she wa

er no different. I didn't take much stock in them earls and nights myself. So fur as I could see they wa

m if I was to run ac

ible Something," she says

h hazel stick twists around and points to the ground. You dig there and you get a good well. Nobody knows jest why that stick is drawed to the ground. It is like one of these little whirlygig compasses is drawed to the north. It is the same, Martha says, if you is on a quest fur a father or a mother, o

es fur wells that was dug in our neighbourhood at home. And I makes up my mind I will watch out fur that feeling of being drawed wherever I goes after this. You can't tell what will come of them kind of things. So purt

nder the wagon looking kind of sour and kind of worried and watching the doctor. The doctor w

n all of a sudden he will go down town and walk up and down the main streets, orderly, but looking hard into people's faces, mostly women's faces. Oncet, Looey says, they was big trouble over it. They was in a store in a good-sized town, and he took ho

er fire inside of his head, and he is hurting outside and in. Looey and me watches him from the shadders fur a long time before we turns in, and the last th

ooey says mebby it ain't going to be one of the reg'lar pifflicated kind. I seen M

uest, do you th

ne. But I couldn't figger Doctor Kirby would of done none.

is a quest?" He look

, "this sudden thirs

the word accidental

e knowed I had set out to pump him. I wisht I hadn't tried it. Then he tells me a q

er hear of Lady Cl

ays, "who

yson's," he says, "whose ma

e sounds kind of li

should try to imitate. If Lady Clara had been here last night when I was talking to

in of that, now. He wasn't quite sure what he had been talking about, and he wanted to see how much I had hearn. I thinks to myself it must be a awful funny kind of h

l talking to you

he same, and was mad because it did. He grinned kind of aggervating at me and says some

d jest as good as owned up I liked Martha, and was kind of mad at myself fur that. But I told him s

foolishness, how I wisht I would really find a dad that was a high-muckymuck and could come back in an automobile and take h

king, quiet-like, all this time. He stood there in the doorway of the tent, with the firelight onto his face and his red beard, and hi

reat her well. For if you don't, you can never run

e said that, and if I hadn't ketched him he would of