Part 10 (1/2)

By some miracle, the endless day ended. The new books that Miss Cathby gave him strapped in the bridle rein and slung over his shoulder, Harky walked straight up the road. He had a feeling that was justified when he saw Dib Heglin waiting.

”Ya been to see Miss Cathby?” Dib squawked in a voice that would have maddened a sheep. ”Did Miss Cathby give ya a bathby?”

Harky s.h.i.+fted the bridle rein from his right hand to his left.

Effecting a gait that was supposedly a caricature of Miss Cathby's feminine walk, and was remarkably similar to the waddle of a fat goose, Dib came toward him.

”Ya been to see--?” he began.

They were near enough. Harky's right fist flicked out.

”Ya-ooo!” Dib shrieked.

Harky danced happily on. No day was wholly wasted if it left Dib Heglin nursing a b.l.o.o.d.y nose.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

MELINDA

Mellie Garson sat on an overturned pickle keg sourly contemplating the inequity of fate. If he was no better than the next man, he told himself, neither was he worse. So why should some be rewarded with a free buggy ride while others received a kick from the mules pulling the buggy?

Mellie s.h.i.+fted his right foot, his newest reason for eating bitter bread, and glared at the crutches without which he was helpless. It was indeed a bitter blow, but it seemed to Mellie as he sat there that his entire life had been one blow after another.

Though he was the father of children, the very fact that there was no son among them was a desperate situation. How did one hand a c.o.o.n hound, not to mention the ma.s.s of c.o.o.n lore that Mellie had acquired during his sixty-seven years on earth, down to a girl child?

The l.u.s.ty wail of a baby floated out of the house. Mellie shuddered, and only by exercising a heroic effort could he refrain from putting his hands over his ears. It was not that he didn't love his daughters and do for them as a proper father should. But did his thirteenth child, now yelling away in her crib, have to be a girl, too?

Mellie ran down the list of his offspring: Marilyn, Maxine, Martha, Minerva, Margaret, Mildred, Minnie, Melinda, Mary, Maud, Marcy, Marcella, and finally, Mich.e.l.le. There'd been some hope they'd run out of Ms, but he'd hoped that clear back when Mary arrived and now hope was dead. He couldn't have thought of Mich.e.l.le. But his daughters could and that, he supposed, was no more than he deserved for exposing them to Miss Cathby's school.

Mellie often wondered if he'd been born in the wrong time of the moon.

Maybe he'd even been born in a caul, but he'd never know whence came his talent for fathering girls, because by the time he started wondering his parents had gone to their eternal reward and it was too late to ask them.

He sighed. Thirteen girl children were thirteen facts of life that n.o.body could change. There were rare intervals, when they didn't all start talking at once, that it was even pleasant to have them around.

But how explain the rest of his misfortunes?

Mellie retraced the chain of events that had culminated in this stark tragedy.

Morning Glory, his pup out of Raw Stanfield's Queenie by b.u.t.t Johnson's Thunder, showed every indication of becoming a rare c.o.o.n hound indeed.

Though Mellie would have been satisfied had she inherited the talent of either parent, there were reasons to believe that she combined the best of both.

However, Glory must have some education and tonight, this matchless autumn night, Raw Stanfield with Queenie and b.u.t.t Johnson with Thunder were meeting at Mun Mundee's house. Had they planned a c.o.o.n hunt, and that only, Mellie would have contented himself with just being heart-broken. But Mun and Harky Mundee were going along with Duckfoot and Mellie had been invited to bring Glory. So--

Yesterday he'd been mule-kicked!