"Gee-whiz!" he complained, "I'm chokin' on the dust. However did they get 'Bloomtown' hitched on to this patch of dirt? There ain't a flower 'in a mile, 'ceptin' the half-dead sprigs the wimmin are acoaxin' against their will." "When I came here," said Ellis, "the old settlers told me that whenever I wanted information I should hunt up Kelly Jones. There he goes now. Call him in." But Kelly was coming anyway. He carried a mysterious basket and his sun-burned face was full of suppressed excitement. "Wife allowed that you and Jap must be putty nigh starved," he chuckled, shifting the quid to his other cheek. "I reckon she knowed that Jap done the cookin' Wednesdays and Thursdays." He lifted the clean white towel from the basket, disclosing a pound of yellow butter, a glass of jelly, a loaf of bread and two pies, fairly reeking aroma. "Fu'st blackberries," asserted Kelly. "I ain't had a pie myself yet, and wife forbid me to take a bite o' yourn." "God bless the wife of our countryman, Kelly Jones. May her shade never grow less," said Ellis fervently, stowing the basket away. "If Jap and Bill stick all the matter on the hooks before noon, they may have pie. Otherwise the Editor of the _Herald_ exercises his prerogative and eats both pies." "Kelly," asked Jap abruptly, "why did they call this patch of dust 'Bloomtown'? Did they ever have even peppergrass growin' along its edges?" Kelly settled himself comfortably in Ellis's chair and draped his long legs over the exchanges. Filling his mouth with Granger twist, he said: "'Twa'n't because of the blooms. Fact is, it never was 'bloom' in the fu'st place. Old man Blome owned this track of land--his name was Jerusalem Blome. Folks used to say Jerusalem Blown. Purty nice story there is about this town and Barton, why neither of 'em has got a railroad, and why Barton is bigger in money and scarcer in folks." Ellis put his stickful of type on the case resignedly. Bill and Jap deposited their weary frames on the doorstep. The hot wind blew in their faces, laden with dust. The smell of dried grass was odorous. "Looks like it mout blow up a rain," said Kelly, sniffing approvingly. "Well, Kelly," declared Ellis, "you have tied the wheels of this machine. Deliver the goods you promised. We are not interested in rain." "Humph!" ruminated Kelly, "it was this-a-way: Old man Blome bought this track about the time that Luellen Barton moved to her plantation. It mout 'a' been sooner; I ain't sure. Barton--leastways, what is Barton now--belonged to old Simpson Barton. When he went south and married a rip-snortin' widow, he brought his wife and a passel o' niggers to live at the old home place. There hadn't never been no niggers there, along of the fu'st Mis' Barton.