"--not an iota of difference to me what other people say or do. I do what I think's right and that's all anybody can do, isn't that true?" He was laboriously following some dull thought of his own. Lottie jumped up quickly--leapt up, almost, so that the knitting bounded toward him, startled him, as did her sudden movement. "I'm going to get the infants," she said, hurriedly. "It's time we were starting back." Even as he stared up at her she was off. She ran through the little wood, down the knoll full pelt, across the field, her sturdy legs flashing beneath her short skirt, her arms out-stretched. Halfway across the flower-strewn meadow she called to Jesse and Charley. They stood up. Something of her feeling communicated itself to them. They sensed her protest. They ran to meet her, laughing; laughing, they met, joined hands, circled round and round, straining away from each other at arm's length like three mad things there in the May meadow until with a final shout and whoop and high-flung step they dropped panting to the ground. Lottie, still breathing fast, was the first to rise. "I had to," she explained, "or bust." "Sure," said the poet and Charley, together. Charley continued. "Lotta, I'll sit in the front seat going home. You and Jesse can get chummy in the back----" "Oh, no--" But when they were ready to go it had, somehow, arranged itself in that way. Charley invariably gained her own end thus. "Will you let me drive part of the way, Mr. Gartz? Please!" He shook a worried head. "Why, say, I'd like to, Miss Charley, but I'm afraid you don't understand this little ol' bus of mine. I'm afraid I'd be nervous with anybody else running it. You'd better just let me----" But in the end it was Charley's slim strong hands that guided the wheel. Ben Gartz sat beside her, tense, watchful, working brakes that were not there. Under the girl's expert guidance the car took the hills like a hawk, swooped, flew, purred. "Say, you better slow down a little," Ben cautioned her again and again. Then, grudgingly, glancing sideways at her lovely young profile, vivid, electric, laughing, "You're _some_ driver, kid!" Lottie, in the back seat, was being charmed by Jesse Dick. She felt as if she had known him for years. He talked little--that is, he would express himself with tremendous enthusiasm on a topic so that you caught the spark of his warmth. Then he would fall silent and his silence was a glowing thing. He sat slumped down on the middle of his spine in a corner of the seat. He rarely glanced at Charley. His eyes flattered Lottie. She found herself being witty and a little hard. She thought now: "Here's one that's different enough. And I haven't an idea of what's going on in _his_ handsome head. Not an idea. Not--" she giggled a little and Jesse Dick was so companionable that he did not even ask her what she was laughing at--"not an iota of an idea."