"Well, see 't y' do. I can't do it; I've got bread to mix an' a chicken to dress. Say, if you don't begin cuttin' till day after to-morrow, we can go down to the sociable to-morrow night. Last one o' the season." "I wish it was the last one before the kingdom come," growled Bert as he "stomped" out the door. "They're a bad lot. The idea o' takin' down four dollars' worth o' grub an' then payin' four dollars for the privilege of eatin' half of it! I'll take my chicken here, when I'm hungry." "Bert ain't partial to sociables, is he, pap?" laughed Flaxen. "I should hate to have the minister dependin' on Bert for a livin'." "Sa-ay, pap!" "Wal, babe?" "I expect I'll haf t' have a new dress one o' these days." "Think so?" "You bet." "Why, what's the matter with the one y' got on? Ain't no holes in it that I can see," looking at it carefully and turning her around as if she were on a pivot. "Well, ain't it purty short, pap?" she said suggestively. "I swear, I don't know but it is," conceded Anson, scratching his head; "I hadn't paid much 'tention to it before. It certainly is a lee-tle too short. Lemme see: ain't no way o' lettin' it down, is they?" "Nary. She's clean down to the last notch now," replied Flaxen convincingly. "Couldn't pull through till we thrash?" he continued, still in a tentative manner. "Could, but don't like to," she answered, laughing again, and showing her white teeth pleasantly. "I s'pose it'll cost suthin'," he insinuated in a dubious tone. "Mattie Stuart paid seven dollars fer her'n, pap, an' I--" "Seven how manys?" "Dollars, pap, makin' an' everythin'. An' then I ought to have a new hat to go with the dress, an' a new pair o' shoes. All the girls are wearin' white, but I reckon I can git along with a good coloured one that'll do fer winter." "Wal, all right. I'll fix it--some way," Ans said, turning away only to look back and smile to see her dancing up and down and crying: "Oh, goody, goody!" "I'll do it if I haf to borrow money at two per cent a month," said he to Bert, as he explained the case. "Hear her sing! Why, dern it! I'd spend all I've got to keep that child twitterin' like that. Wouldn't you, eh?" Bert was silent, thinking deeply on a variety of matters suggested by Anson's words. The crickets were singing from out the weeds near by; a lost little wild chicken was whistling in plaintive sweetness down in the barley-field; the flaming light from the half-sunk sun swept along the green and yellow grain, glorifying as with a bath of gold everything it touched. "I wish that grain hadn't ripened so fast, Ans. It's blightin'." "Think so?" "No: I know it. I went out to look at it before supper, an' every one of those spots that look so pretty are just simply burnin' up! But, say, ain't it a little singular that Flaxen should blossom out in a desire for a new dress all at once? Ain't it rather sudden?"