"I done been dig it up fo' you an' wash it, dis ebenin', 'stid o' termorrer," drawled my vindicator. "So's ter hab it all ready fur the Fyar."
Mute and triumphant, I received it in a rapturous embrace, set it on a bench by the stable door, and passed the hem of my muslin apron about it. The ends just met.
"That's how I knew how big it was," I said simply. "Mother told me that my apron was a yard wide. I measured it while it was in the ground."
The beet—and its history—went to the Fair, and a prize was awarded to "Miss Mary Hobson Burwell, For best specimen of Mangel Wurzel, raised by Herself."
Chapter XIII
Two Adventures
N a country neighborhood where half the people were cousins to the other half, gossip could not but spring up and flourish as lushly as pursley,—named by the Indians, "the white man's foot."