Produced by Kentuckiana Digital Library, David Garcia, Chuck Greif, Leonard Johnson and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. THE TINDER-BOX [Illustration: "You don't need another vine," I answered mutinously.] THE TINDER-BOX BY MARIA THOMPSON DAVIESS Author of "The Melting of Molly," "Miss Selina Lue," "Sue Jane," Etc. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOHN EDWIN JACKSON NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. _Published, November, 1913_ I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO HANNAH DAVIESS PITTMAN WHO BLAZED MY TRAIL AND STILL DOES CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. THE LOAD 3 II. THE MAIDEN LANCE 26 III. A FLINT-SPARK 48 IV. SWEETER WHEN TAMED? 79 V. DEEPER THAN SHOULDERS OR RIBS 105 VI. MAN AND THE ASAFETIDA SPOON 136 VII. SOME SMOLDERINGS 173 VIII. AN ATTAINED TO-MORROW 211 IX. DYNAMITE 248 X. TOGETHER? 282 ILLUSTRATIONS "You don't need another vine," I answered mutinously....._Frontispiece_ He stood calmly in the midst of Sallie's family and baggage, both animate and inanimate 38 "Say, Polk, I let the Pup git hung by her apron to the wheel of your car" 98 His gray eyes were positively mysterious with interrupted dreams 182 "We must not allow the men time to get sore over this matter of the League" 218 "Is this right?" he asked 244 "She's our Mother," he said 276 Scrouged so close to his arm that it was difficult for both of them to walk 280 THE TINDER BOX CHAPTER I THE LOAD All love is a gas, and it takes either loneliness, strength of character, or religion to liquefy it into a condition to be ladled out of us, one to another. There is a certain dangerously volatile state of it; and occasionally people, especially of opposite sexes, try to administer it to each other in that form, with asphyxiation resulting to both hearts. And I'm willing to confess that it is generally a woman's fault when such an accident occurs. That is, it is a mistake of her nature, not one of intent. But she is learning! Also when a woman is created, the winds have wooed star-dust, rose-dew, peach-down, and a few flint-shavings into a whirlwind of deviltry, and the world at large looks on in wonder and sore amazement, as well as breathless interest. I know, because I am one, and have just been waked up by the gyrations of the cyclone; and I'm deeply confounded. I don't like it, and wish I could have slept longer, but Fate and Jane Mathers decreed otherwise. At least Jane decreed, and Fate seems so far helpless to controvert the decree.