'Why did they—write such a—lie to me—about the pony?' he challenged faintly.

'Forget it, boy!' returned his father gayly. 'We’ll have a pony yet! We’ll have to have one to get the color back into your face, I’m thinking! Say, sonny, I’m glad you got the old stall fixed up for it, aren’t you?'

The unwavering eyes were still upon his father, and the first entirely unresisted tears that any one had ever seen in them since he stepped out of his baby’s dresses and marched forth to life, with brave but unaccustomed feet, and steadying pauses, slipped quietly down the white cheeks.

'You—you wouldn’t—talk that way—unless you meant it!' whispered Crosby.

THE SQUIRE
BY ELSIE SINGMASTER

THE squire was a bachelor, and lived alone in his house; therefore he was able to use the parlor and dining-room for offices. The parlor contained only a pine desk, a map, hanging 'at' the wall, as Millerstown would have said, and a dozen or so plain pine chairs. The law was administered with scant ceremony in Millerstown.

The squire sat now in the twilight in his 'back' office, which was furnished with another pine table, two chairs, and a large old-fashioned iron safe. He was clearly of a geographical turn of mind, for table, safe, and floor were littered with railroad maps and folders. The squire was about sixty years old; he had all the grave beauty which the Gaumer men acquired. Their hair did not thin as it turned gray, their smooth-shaven faces did not wrinkle. They all looked stern, but their faces brightened readily at sight of a little child or an old friend, or with amusement over some untold thought.

The squire’s face glowed. He was going—his age, his inexperience, the certain disapproval of Millerstown notwithstanding—he was going round the world! He would start in a month, and thus far he had told no one but Edwin Seem, an adventurous young Millerstonian who was to leave that night for a ranch in Kansas, and whom the squire was to visit on his own journey. For thirty years he had kept Millerstown straight; there was no possible case for which his substitute would not find a precedent. Fortunately there were no trusts to be investigated and reproved, and no vote-buyers or bribers to be imprisoned or fined. There were disputes of all kinds, dozens of them. There was one waiting for the squire now in the outer office; he shook his head solemnly at thought of it, as he gathered up his maps and thrust them back into the safe, that precious old safe which held the money for his journey. He had been thirty years gathering the money together.

The law might be administered in Millerstown without formality, but it was not administered without the eager attention of the citizens. Every one in the village was on hand when simple-minded Venus Stuber was indicted for stealing, or when the various dramatic scenes of the Miller-Weitzel feud were enacted. This evening’s case, Sula Myers vs. Adam Myers for non-support, might be considered part of the Miller-Weitzel feud, since the two real principals, Sula’s mother and Adam’s mother, had been respectively Sally Miller and Maria Weitzel.

The air was sultry, and rain threatened. The clouds seemed to rest on the tops of the maple trees; it was only because the Millerstonians knew the rough brick pavements as they knew the palms of their hands that there were no serious falls in the darkness. They laughed as they hurried to the hearing: it was seldom that a dispute promised so richly. There was almost no one in the village who could not have been subpœnaed as a witness, so thorough was every one’s knowledge of the case.