"She did! She did!" howled "Al-f-u-r-d," jerking his head toward the gate, just as the elderly woman behind the spectacles entered. Trembling with fear she began to explain and apologize to Lin and the mother, frequently turning to "Al-f-u-r-d" to entreat him to come to her, assuring him that he need not fear her. But the big buggy whip, with the silver bands, dangled above his head and the more she entreated the louder his yells and the further he forced himself into his mother's garments. [Illustration: She Did! She Did!] Lin grabbed his clothes from the spectacled lady berating both soundly, giving them but little opportunity to explain. Others joined in the wordy attack, much to the elderly woman's confusion and shame. The fact that they were old maids, living alone and associating with but few of their neighbors, lent bitterness to the invectives hurled at them, the climax was reached with a parting shot from Lin: "Drat ye!" she exclaimed, "if ye had yungins of yer own--which is lucky for 'em that ye haven't--ye'd have some hearts in yer withered old frames." The spectacled maiden, apparently more frightened than the other, began to feel what a monster she was, what an awful crime she had committed, following an embarrassing pause, the effect of Lin's final shot, mother again demanded the cause of "Al-f-u-r-d's" nudity. "I s'pose I ought to have pulled down the blinds," she began apologetically, "and let him have his swim out. Likely it wouldn't have hurt the spring much. Still a body doesn't like to drink water out of a spring that a boy's been swimmin' in, no matter if his folks are clean about their house-keeping." She was certainly sorry and so anxious to caress "Al-f-u-r-d" that she and the mother made it up, then and there, and many an afternoon thereafter did the two spend together bemoaning the evil spirit that had prompted the boy to make a swimming hole of the family spring. Kindly invitations nor the promise of sponge cake ever induced "Al-f-u-r-d" to again visit the grounds, or the white house with green blinds, a buggy whip with silver bands on it, a big dog and two old maids who, according to Lin, "didn't know nuthin' 'bout children." CHAPTER THREE In the heydey of youth He was awfully green, As verdant in truth As you have ever seen; But he soon learned to know beans So it seems. "There's shorely sumthin' 'bout water that bewitches that boy," often remarked Lin. "I never seen the like of it. I'll bet anything he'll be a Baptis' preacher some day, jes' like Billy Hickman."