"You needn't begin all that again." The girl lowered her head and half raised her hoe to strike at a weed near a stalk of cotton. "I know what I am well enough. I was born with a load on me, and I'm going to tote it till I get to a dumping-place. My good looks won't set the world on fire."
"Well, they have set me on fire," Bradley laughed, significantly. He lowered his feet to the ground on her side of the fence and leaned his gun against it. "Say, this sun will actually blister us; let's go down to the spring."
"No spring for me to-day," she said, grimly. "I see Aunt Mandy on the back porch now. She'll hang out a towel in a minute. That's the signal that it is half-past eleven by the clock. I've got to go cook dinner."
"Well, I'll walk over with you."
"No, you mustn't."
"Why?"
"Because I'd rather you wouldn't—that's all."
"I declare I believe you mean that, and I won't push myself on you, Dixie. You know how I feel about you, and you oughtn't to be so dadblasted rough with a fellow. I think about you night and day. I didn't come out to shoot anything this morning. I simply couldn't get over the way you turned me down yesterday. I lay awake last night thinking about it, and so I waited for you this morning. I stayed in the bushes over there watching till you hoed up here. I don't believe I'll ever get over feeling that way, and I am not going to give up. I'm going to keep hoping."
"There goes my towel!" Dixie said, as she laid her hoe across her shoulder. "I must go. Don't follow me, Hank. I don't want her, or anybody else, to see me out here with you."
"Then come out to the fence this evening, after supper, won't you, just a minute?"