After this, to Henley's mystification, she did not talk as freely as at the outset, and she seemed to be very thoughtful. As they were driving into the bustling town, she looked at him fixedly and said:
"The papers say the programme don't begin till eleven o'clock. That's the hour set for the first race with the reel-wagons. I was just wondering what we'd better do to kill time till then. I hain't got a thing to buy that you hain't got in your stock at home, and I hain't a person to go in and nose about and have clerks pull down a whole raft of bolts and boxes without paying for the trouble. You see, I reckon it ain't later 'n nine o'clock now, and—"
"Oh, I see," said Henley. "Why, Dixie, I sort o' mapped it out this way. You see, knowing how anxious Long will be to meet you right off, I thought we'd drive straight to his shebang and 'light and hitch. He's got a chair or two in the back-end of his shack, and we could kind o' set about, and when he ain't waiting on customers, why, we—"
"I thought you had more sense than that," Dixie burst out with unexpected warmth. "You can go there if you like, but I won't go a step! Huh, I say—I would cut a purty dash, wouldn't I?—setting around amongst chicken-coops, lard-cans, and salt pork for a fool, vain man to look me over and sniff and feel set back because I didn't happen to—to come quite up—shucks! I don't believe any of you men understand women. Huh! but we understand you all right."
"I'm awfully sorry I made you mad," Henley stammered. "You know, Dixie, I wouldn't say a thing for worlds that would—"
Dixie laughed. "You couldn't make me mad at you to save your life, Alfred. I'm mad at myself, that's all, for starting out on such a silly jaunt. I might have knowed that it would be hard to put this thing through in any decent shape. I don't care what Long'll say or think. I come over here to this tournament with you, at your invite, and if he shows by a single bat of the eye that he thinks I meant anything else he'll hear something that will ring in his ears till he's put under ground. I reckon the idea never got within a mile of his brain that he may not suit me at all. Why, I may hate the very sight of him."
"You no doubt will if you keep on looking at the thing that way," said Henley, admiring the very mystery that cloaked her words and manner, and quite convinced that she was wiser, in some vague way, at least, than all the rest of mankind put together. "I only thought that would be the best way to start the ball rolling."
"Well, it won't start at all if I have to tote it to the top of a hill and give it the first kick," Dixie said, firmly. "I'm a big fool. I'll bet you haven't a bit of respect for me. That other racket of mine was enough to brand me as the champion woman idiot of the earth, and this goes that one better. What's the use o' being a fool if you don't learn sense by it?"
"Oh, don't talk that way, Dixie," Henley protested, at the end of his resources. "I thought we was going to have such a fine time, and now you hardly know what you want. If you won't go to his store, then I'll tell you what we could do. The public wagon-yard is the best place to see the tournament from. I could unhitch at the edge of the sidewalk in the shade of the trees, and you'd have a reserved seat through it all."
"That's some better, anyway," she said, as if relieved. "I come near showing my temper, didn't I? Well, I've got one hid away inside of me, and it kicks up sand sometimes when I'm least expecting it."