CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE [I. Dixie] 11 [II. New Teacher] 21 [III. Neighborhood Gossip] 27 [IV. Getting Acquainted] 38 [V. The Woodford Schoolhouse] 46 [VI. Ken’s Secret Sorrow] 56 [VII. The Blessing Undisguised] 66 [VIII. A Queer Bank] 72 [IX. The “Charity Barrel”] 76 [X. Carol’s Choice] 86 [XI. Planning a Way Out] 91 [XII. Carol’s New Home] 96 [XIII. Carol in Disgrace] 103 [XIV. The Little Runaway] 109 [XV. A Happy Reunion] 119 [XVI. A Joyous Dixie] 124 [XVII. A Defiant Teacher] 133 [XVIII. The Sheep-King Dictates] 140 [XIX. Dixie Goes Shopping] 146 [XX. Dixie Buys a Silk Dress] 157 [XXI. Dixie Visits a Friend] 162 [XXII. Teacher Revolutionizes] 166 [XXIII. The Return of Topsy] 175 [XXIV. Dixie’s Lesson in Dressmaking] 180 [XXV. Where the Trail Led] 191 [XXVI. Ken’s Quest] 196 [XXVII. Celebrating] 205 [XXVIII. On the Trail of a “Bandit”] 209 [XXIX. Ken’s Old Friend] 222 [XXX. “Rattlesnake Sam”] 232 [XXXI. An Unwelcome Guest] 238 [XXXII. A Hard Game] 248 [XXXIII. Rude Little Sylvia] 256 [XXXIV. The Young Engineer Dreams] 263 [XXXV. The Pretend Game] 269 [XXXVI. Ken’s Talk With Teacher] 283 [XXXVII. Carol’s Birthday S’prise] 288 [XXXVIII. The Expected Blizzard] 302 [XXXIX. A Happy Father] 312 [XL. A Mystery Solved] 319 [XLI. A Resolution Broken] 328 [XLII. An Eventful Spring] 337 [XLIII. The Unexpected Guest] 347 [XLIV. Clearing Up Mysteries] 353
ILLUSTRATIONS
[A queer-looking group they made (Page 40)] Frontispiece FACING PAGE [“I’m going to tell you all about us, Miss Bayley”] 136 [“It’s a birthday present from me”] 298 [The young engineer slowly opened his eyes] 310
DIXIE MARTIN
CHAPTER ONE
DIXIE
“Carolina Martin, you get up this instant. Do you hear me? I’ve called you sixteen times already, if ’tisn’t twenty, and this the morning the new teacher starts at the old log schoolhouse over at Woodford’s. You don’t want us all to be late, do you, and have her think we’re shiftless, like the poor white folks our mother used to tell about, in the mountains down in Tennessee. We, with the bluest blood in our veins that flows in the whole South! Carolina, are you up?”
This conversation was carried on in a high-pitched voice by a thin, homely, freckled-faced little girl whose straight brick-red hair had not a wave in it, and whose long, skinny legs, showing beneath the gingham dress two years too short for her, made her appear as ungainly as a colt.
There was no one else present in the big living-room of the log cabin, but the voice carried well, and was heard in the loft above, where, in a large four-posted bed, another small girl sleepily replied, “Oh, Dixie, I wish folks never did have to get up, nor go to school, nor—” The voice trailed off drowsily, and Carolina had just turned over for another little nap when she heard her sister climbing the ladder which led from the room below to the loft where the two girls slept.
Instantly the culprit leaped to the floor. When the red head of Dixie appeared at the square opening of the trap-door, the small girl was making great haste to don her one piece of all-over underwear.