Tonia stopped for a moment by the side of Road Runner.
“Thank you, thank you, Wells,” she said, happily. “It’s just what I wanted. Won’t you come over to Cactus to-morrow and go to church with me?”
“If I can,” said Pearson. He was looking curiously at her hat, and then he grinned weakly.
Tonia flew into the buckboard like a bird. The vehicles sped away for Cactus.
“What have you been doing, Pearson?” asked Daddy Weaver. “You ain’t looking so well as common.”
“Me?” said Pearson. “I’ve been painting flowers. Them roses was white when I left Lone Elm. Help me down, Daddy Weaver, for I haven’t got any more paint to spare.”
ROUND THE CIRCLE
[This story is especially interesting as an early treatment (1902) of the theme afterward developed with a surer hand in The Pendulum.]
“Find yo’ shirt all right, Sam?” asked Mrs. Webber, from her chair under the live-oak, where she was comfortably seated with a paper-back volume for company.
“It balances perfeckly, Marthy,” answered Sam, with a suspicious pleasantness in his tone. “At first I was about ter be a little reckless and kick ’cause ther buttons was all off, but since I diskiver that the button holes is all busted out, why, I wouldn’t go so fur as to say the buttons is any loss to speak of.”