Part 8 (2/2)

Billy looked down at the big, blue bow and at the soft, blue ruffly stuff on her shoulders--stuff that was just thin enough so that one caught elusive suggestions of the soft, pinky flesh beneath--and wondered vaguely why he had never noticed the beating in his throat before--and what would happen if he reached around and tilted back her chin and--”Thunder! I guess I've sure got 'em, all right!” he brought himself up angrily, and refrained from carrying the subject farther.

It was rumored that the dancing would shortly begin in the schoolhouse up the hill, and Billy realized suddenly with some compunction that he had forgotten all about Dill. ”I want to introduce my new boss to yuh, Miss Bridger,” he said when they had left the table and she was smoothing down the ruffly blue stuff in an adorably feminine way. ”He isn't much just to look at, but he's the whitest man I ever knew. You wait here a minute and I'll go find him”--which was a foolish thing for him to do, as he afterward found out.

For when he had hunted the whole length of the grove, he found Dill standing like a blasted pine tree in the middle of a circle of men--men who were married, and so were not wholly taken up with the feminine element--and he was discoursing to them earnestly and grammatically upon the capitalistic tendencies of modern politics.

Billy stood and listened long enough to see that there was no hope of weaning his interest immediately, and then went back to where he had left Miss Bridger. She was not there. He looked through the nearest groups, approached one of the fat women, who was industriously sorting the remains of the feast and depositing the largest and most attractive pieces of cake in her own basket, and made bold to inquire if she knew where Miss Bridger had gone.

”Gone home after some prune pie, I guess maybe,” she retorted quellingly, and Billy asked no farther.

Later he caught sight of a blue flutter in the swing; investigated and saw that it was Miss Bridger, and that the Pilgrim, smiling and with his hat set jauntily back on his head, was pus.h.i.+ng the swing. They did not catch sight of Billy for he did not linger there. He turned short around, walked purposefully out to the edge of the grove where his horse was feeding at the end of his rope, picked up the rope and led the horse over to where his saddle lay on its side, the neatly folded saddle-blanket laid across it. ”Darn it, stand still!” he growled unjustly, when the horse merely took the liberty of switching a fly off his rump. Billy picked up the blanket, shook the wrinkles out mechanically, held it before him ready to lay across the waiting back of Barney; shook it again, hesitated and threw it violently back upon the saddle.

”Go on off--I don't want nothing of yuh,” he admonished the horse, which turned and looked at him inquiringly. ”I ain't through yet--I got another chip to put up.” He made him a cigarette, lighted it and strolled nonchalantly back to the grove.

CHAPTER XI.

_”When I Lift My Eyebrows This Way.”_

”Oh, where have you been, Billy boy, Billy boy?

Oh, where have you been, charming Billy?”

Somewhere behind him a daring young voice was singing. Billy turned with a real start, and when he saw her coming gayly down a little, brush-hidden path and knew that she was alone, the heart of him turned a complete somersault--from the feel of it.

”My long friend, Dilly, was busy, and so I--I went to look after my horse,” he explained, his mind somewhat in a jumble. How came she to be there, and why did she sing those lines? How did she know that was _his_ song, or--did she really care at all? And where was the Pilgrim?

”Mr. Walland and I tried the swing, but I don't like it; it made me horribly dizzy,” she said, coming up to him. ”Then I went to find Mama Joy--”

”Who?” Billy had by that time recovered his wits enough to know just exactly what she said.

”Mama Joy--my stepmother. I call her that. You see, father wants me to call her mama--he really wanted it mother, but I couldn't--and she's so young to have me for a daughter, so she wants me to call her Joy; that's her name. So I call her both and please them both, I hope. Did you ever study diplomacy, Mr. Boyle?”

”I never did, but I'm going to start right in,” Billy told her, and half meant it.

”A thorough understanding of the subject is indispensable--when you have a stepmother--a _young_ stepmother. You've met her, haven't you?”

”No,” said Billy. He did not want to talk about her stepmother, but he hated to tell her so. ”Er--yes, I believe I did see her once, come to think of it,” he added honestly when memory prompted him.

Miss Bridger laughed, stopped, and laughed again. ”How Mama Joy would _hate_ you if she knew that!” she exclaimed relishfully.

”Why?”

”Oh, you wait! If ever I tell her that you--that _anybody_ ever met her and then forgot! Why, she knows the color of your hair and eyes, and she knows the pattern of that horsehair hat-band and the size of your boots--she _admires_ a man whose feet haven't two or three inches for every foot of his height--she says you wear fives, and you don't lack much of being six feet tall, and--”

”Oh, for Heaven's sake!” protested Billy, very red and uncomfortable.

”What have I done to yuh that you throw it into me like that? My hands are up--and they'll stay up if you'll only quit it.”

<script>