Through the closed door came the scraping of the indefatigable fiddles. "Hold her tight, and run her down the middle!" shouted the voice of the caller-out.
"Over to Watts's last fall," Mrs. Luella rambled on, slicing ham the while at a great rate, "they had bun sandwiches, and in the top of ary bun there was a toothpick stickin' up. If you've got toothpicks enough about the place, we might try it. It looks real tasty."
"Mrs. Jenkins," Lem broke in, "do you know Bub Quinn?"
"No; nor I don't want to," Luella answered curtly.
"Why not?"
"He's too handy with his shooting-irons to suit my taste."
Then, resuming the thread of her discourse: "You don't think, now, you've got toothpicks enough? They'd set things off real nice." But Lem had departed.
"I s'pose he's kind o' flustered with givin' their first dance," she said apologetically to her coadjutor among the sandwiches.
Lem was a great favorite with Mrs. Luella. She liked him better than she did Joe. She was one of the few people who could, at a glance, tell the two brothers apart. She always spoke of Lem as the "little chap," though he was in fact precisely of a height with his brother; and she gave as the reason for the preference, that "the little chap wasn't a ramper." Unfortunately for Lem, perhaps, she was right. He was not a ramper.
As Lem stepped out into the other room, the caller-out was shouting, "Promen-ade all—you know where!" The sets were breaking up, and Joe with his best manner was leading his partner to a seat. The face had vanished from the window. Bub Quinn was striding across the room, and now planted himself in front of the recreant pair.