"I understand," said I, "the watched pot never boils."
"I got him bubbling once or twice," she giggled.
At an elevation of eight thousand feet, water will boil without being hot enough to cook an egg. So on this mountain top, Rams' bubbling point was a long way short of a grand passion. "Worms ain't more slippery," said Mistress Violet. "After all we done, too."
Loco's festal apparel and brown shoes, her own frocks—of the kind which shriek to heaven, and a heap of household linen, had all been bought on credit to astonish Rams. "As to provisions—my! Sass! Jells! Egg-powders! Apple-butter! Tomay-toes! Pait-defore-grass! We ran our face for the lot."
"But when Rams actually came," said I, "he got burnt beans, and sow-belly done to cinders."
"Whose fault was that?" she bridled. "Besides, he put off coming, until he arrived with a bang, and we weren't even dressed. We'd been wearing store clothes for a month—and there was me caught with my bangs in curling-irons."
"Still, Rams is in clover now."
"That's all you know. We got a house full of fancy groceries, but no grub. And would you believe it—when I sent Loco down for beans, flour and bacon, the trader at Windermere wanted him to pay cash!"
"The wretch!"
"And now," she culminated, "it's up to you to lend me fifty dollars."