The woman’s daughter—a girl about Lil Pendleton’s age—waited on them. She was a brown-skinned, big-eyed, healthy-looking girl—a regular country beauty. Laura whispered:
“Isn’t she a splendid creature?”
Purt had cocked an appreciative eye at her, and he murmured: 178
“Quite true—quite true, Miss Laura. She’s as beautiful as Hebe,” and gave the name of the goddess the very best pronunciation, according to Professor Dimp.
“Beautiful as he be?” drawled Chet, in exaggeration of bucolic twang, looking amusedly at the lank and lazy squatter himself who lay snoring on the platform before the hut. “Huh! she’s a sight purtier than he be. Why, he’s as humbly as a hedge-fence—an’ ye can see, Purt, that the girl takes after her mother.”
“It sure is too bad how they rig you, Pretty,” laughed Jess.
“Pretty’s all right!” joined in Billy Long. “Only one thing wrong with him. He starts easy, and he speeds up well, but just at the critical moment he always skids.”
“Hear the motor talk from Short and Long! Yow!” exclaimed Reddy Butts. “And old Purt’s not so slow at that!”
“Who said he was slow?” demanded Short and Long, with apparent indignation. “Bet you can’t do him, Reddy.”
“Bet I can—and for half a dollar, too,” declared the youth with the radiant head of hair.