"And why, I should like to know?" answered Albert. "He need not put on any high and mighty airs. I have heard my father say that when the Howellses came here from Kentucky, when the Stone River country was first settled, and old man Hixon was running his ferry across the stream here, they were so poor that they wore bed-ticking clothes, went barefoot, and lived on hog and hominy for many a year afterwards. Side-meat was good enough for them then. The fat of the land is not good enough for them now. It just makes me sick! Such airs!" And honest Albert got down from the fence to give freer expression to his deep disgust. Larry went away from this casual meeting with his stanch friend Albert with a sense of depression. His nature was unsuspicious and he chose to think that all men were as honest and as frank as he certainly was. Young Heaton's talk had shaken his faith in human nature as far as that was represented in one man--Ben Burton, the open-eyed and bluff Ben Burton. No wonder Larry repelled Al Heaton's notion that Ben "was not altogether square" and should be watched. Larry was to stop at Armstrong's blacksmith shop, on the north side, on his way home, to have his horse shod. So, as he was leading the animal across the bridge, lost in thought and dwelling somewhat darkly on his conversation with Al Heaton, he did not notice that a young lady, very charmingly dressed and daintily booted and gloved, was tripping along toward him from the opposite side of the river, in the foot-walk that skirted the lower side of the rickety old wooden bridge. He did not look up until his steed, never very easily startled out of a heavy and slouching gait, jumped wildly at a sudden flash from a sky-blue parasol which the young lady deliberately shook at him. "Whoa, Nance!" cried Larry, astonished at the beast's unprecedented skittishness, "you old fool!" but here he stopped, for his eyes fell on the bewitching apparition on the other side of the timbered rail, and he colored deeply red as he beheld Miss Alice ready to giggle at his confusion. "Good day, Mr. Boyne," said the girl, "I am glad I have met you. I wanted to ask you how the club is getting along, and if you think you will be in good condition for the coming season. To be sure, papa tells me that he has every confidence in your success; but then, papa is hardly a judge in base ball matters, you know, although he has learned a great deal lately, and so have many other people, and they all seem very confident; but the wish is father to the thought, you know, and so I thought I would like to see some one in whose judgment and candor I could put a great deal of confidence, a very great deal, you know, and see what he thinks about the prospect before us. I say 'us,' you see, because it is a sort of town matter. Now isn't it?"