"How's that?" was Anderson's rebuke.
"I mean Mr. Crow," corrected Ed, with a nervous glance at Rosalie, who had been his companion for the evening.
"Oh, I'm jest so-so," remarked Anderson, mollified. "How was the party?"
"It wasn't a party, Daddy Crow," laughed Rosalie, seating herself in front of him on the porch rail. "It was an experience meeting. Alf Reesling has reformed again. He told us all about his last attack of delirium tremens."
"You don't say so! Well, sir, I never thought Alf could find the time to reform ag'in. He's too busy gittin' tight," mused Anderson. "But I guess reformin' c'n git to be as much a habit as anythin' else."
"I think he was a little woozy to-night," ventured 'Rast Little.
"A little what?"
"Drunk," explained 'Rast, without wasting words. 'Rast had acquired the synonym at the business men's carnival in Boggs City the preceding fall. Sometimes he substituted the words "pie-eyed," "skeed," "lit up," etc., just to show his worldliness.
After the young men had departed and the Crow girls had gone upstairs with their mother Rosalie slipped out on the porch and sat herself down upon the knee of her disconsolate guardian.