"Being the minister's wife, I've been taking the liberty, Mr. Hart," she said, smiling pleasant, when the three of 'em come together on the track, "of looking around a little up at your place to see that everything has been fixed for your company the way it should be." (She hadn't been nowheres near Hart's place, it turned out--but Gospel truth wasn't just what there was most of that day in Palomitas.) She went right on down the track without stopping, passing on Hart's side, and saying to him: "My husband expects you as usual at the Friendly Aid meeting to-morrow evening, Mr. Hart. We never seem half to get along, you know, when you're not there." Hart's aunt give a little jump, and said: "Why, William, that must be Mrs. Charles, the minister's wife. What a pleasant-spoken lady she is! We met her husband just as we were driving into town." Hart said he come pretty near saying back to her, "The hell you did!"--Hart talked that careless way, sometimes--but he said he pulled up before it got out, and all he did say was, "Oh!" "She must be at the head of the Dorcas Society that Mr. Hill was telling me about," Hart's aunt went on; "and like enough she manages the kindergarten, too. I suppose, William, it's not surprising you haven't said anything in your letters about the Dorcas Society--for all you were so liberal in helping it--but I do think you might have told me about the kindergarten, knowing what a hobby of mine kindergartens are. I want to go and see it to-morrow morning, the first thing." "It's--it's not in running order just now," Hart said. "Most of the children was took sick with the influenza last week, and there's whooping-cough and measles about, and so the school committee closed it down. And they had to stop, anyway, because they're going to put a new roof on. I guess it won't blow in again for about a month--or maybe more. In fact, I don't know--you see, it wasn't managed well, and got real down unpopular--if it'll blow in again at all. I'm sorry you won't be able to get to it, Aunt Maria. Maybe it'll be running if you happen to come out again next year." "Why, how queer that is, William!" Hart's aunt said. "Mr. Hill told me it was the best kindergarten in New Mexico. But of course you know. Anyhow, I can see the schoolroom and the school fixtures, and Mrs. Charles can tell me about it when I go to the Dorcas Society--and that'll do most as well. Of course I must get to the Dorcas Society. Mrs. Charles will take me, I'm sure. It meets, Mr. Hill says, every Thursday afternoon." "Did he say where it was meeting now?" Hart asked. He was getting about desperate, he told Cherry afterwards; and what he wanted most was a chance to mash Hill's fool head for putting him in such a lot of holes.