"It was," mused Milt. "It was poor and miserable. We had to work

hard--we had to fight for whatever education we got--we had no one to

teach us courtesy."

"Oh now, with your fine old doctor father? Surely he was an

inspiration?" Jeff didn't, this time, trouble to hide the sneer.

"Yes. He was. He gave up the chance to be a rich loafer in order to save

farmers' babies for fees that he never got."

"I'm sure he did. I wish I'd known him. We need to know men like that in

this pink-frosting playing at living we have in cities," Claire said

sweetly--not to Milt but to Jeff.

Mrs. Gilson had ignored them, waiting with the patience of a cat at a

mouse-hole, and she went on, "But you haven't said you'd come, this

evening. Do say you will. I don't suppose Mr. McGollups will care to

dress for dinner?"

With saccharin devotion Milt yearned back, "No, Mrs. Gilson. No. Mr.

McGolwey won't care to dress. He's eccentric."

"But you'll make him come?"

Milt was tactfully beginning to refuse when Gene Gilson at last

exploded, turned purple, covered his dripping, too-red lips with his

handkerchief.

Then, abruptly, Milt hurled at Mrs. Gilson, "All right. We'll come.

Bill'll be awfully funny. He's never been out of a jerkwater burg in his

life, hardly. He's an amusing cuss. He thinks I'm smart! He loves me

like a dog. Oh, he's rich! Ha, ha, ha!"

Milt might have gone on ... if he had, Mr. and Mrs. Gilson would have

gone away, much displeased. But Bill arrived, with some of the worst tea

in the world, and four cups tastefully done in cupids' heads and much

gilt.

Milt made tea, ignoring them, while Bill entertained the Gilsons and

Saxtons with Rabelaisian stories of threshing-time when shirts prickly

with chaff and gritty with dust stuck to sweat-dripping backs; of the

"funny thing" of Milt and Bill being hired to move a garbage-pile and

"swiping" their employer's "mushmelons"; of knotting shirts at the

swimming-hole so that the bawling youngsters had to "chaw beef"; of

drinking beer in the livery-stable at Melrose; of dropping the

water-pitcher from a St. Klopstock hotel window upon the head of the

"constabule" and escaping from him across the lean-to roof.

Mrs. Gilson encouraged him; Bill sat with almost closed eyes, glorying

in the saga of small-town life; Saxton and Gilson did not conceal their

contemptuous grins.

But Claire---- After nervously rubbing the tips of her thumbs with

flickering agitated fingers, she had paid no attention to Bill and the

revelation of Milt's rustic life; she had quietly gone to Milt, to help

him prepare the scanty tea.

She whispered, "Never mind, dear. I don't care. It was all twice as much

fun as being wheeled in lacy prams by cranky nurses, as Jeff and I were.

But I know how you feel. Are you ashamed of having been a prairie

pirate?"




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