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Jess had packed it herself. Leeby was wiser. "Let her do't," she whispered, "it'll keep her frae broodin'." Jess tied ends of yarn round the stockings to keep them in a little bundle by themselves. So she did with all the other articles. "No 'at it's ony great affair," she said, for on the last night they were all thirsting to do something for Jamie that would be a great affair to him.
Professor Dimp pretty nearly set him back for that." "Aw now," growled Billy. "He asked for a date, didn't he?" "What's the burn?" demanded Bobby, briskly. "Why, Old Dimple asked Billy to mention a memorable date in Roman history, and Billy says: 'Antony's with Cleopatra." "Oh, oh, oh!" gasped Jess. "That's the worst kind of slang." Mrs. Morse paid the young folk very little attention.
About six o'clock, the time announced for the ceremony, I elbowed my way through the expectant throng of men, women, and children that already besieged the smith's door. Shrill demands of "Toss, toss!" rent the air every time Jess' head showed on the window-blind, and Andra hoped, as I pushed open the door, "that I hadna forgotten my bawbees."
But he had outguessed Jess Tighe that time. His luck had sure stood up fine. The occasion called for a demonstration. He took off his broad-rimmed gray hat. "Three rousing cheers, Mr. Dingwell," he announced ceremoniously. "Now, all together." Rising to his toes, he waved his hat joyously, worked his shoulders like a college cheer leader, and gave a dumb pantomime of yelling.
"Isn't it queer to think how just finding a little water will make you feel good out here, while at home all we had to do was to turn a faucet and we got all we wanted and never dreamed of being thankful for it," observed Jess philosophically. "Wish we could strike an ice-cream soda pocket," observed Jimsy, who was vigorously scouring the dust off his classic lineaments.
Bill, too, got on well enough with his pony, and Jess was taken no more night-rides. No ducks were lost; and Dolly gave her milk quite comfortably to whoever milked her. Alas! this was either Bill or the Gardener's wife now.
"If I'd done anything like that, you'd all have jumped on me," Hester Grimes declared with a sniff. "It wouldn't have been considered funny at all." "And it wouldn't have been," murmured Jess to Laura. "There is one thing about you, Hessie," said Bobby, in her most honeyed tone, "that 'precludes, as Gee Gee would say, your doing such a thing." "What's that, Miss Smarty?"
Whether she did or not, Jess sometimes seemed to see a good deal that others did not see, and was apparently a favorite with the Brownie, for she grew and thrived so much that she soon became the pride and delight of the children and of the whole family. You would hardly have known her for the rough, shaggy, half-starved little beast that had arrived a few weeks before.
"Seem like they's jess some scouts, most likely a-comin' in to report, feelin' pooty safe and sort o' takin' it easy and careless; 'dreamin' the happy hours away, as the felleh says. I reckon they sort o' believed my story, too, the little gal yelled so sort o' skilful.
"I shall be at the gate of the hill pasture," so she wrote, "at ten o'clock to-night." It was with a very tumultuous heart that she closed this missive, and went out quickly to give it to Jess lest she should repent. A day before, even, it had never entered her mind that by any possibility she could write such a note to a young man whom she had only known so short a time.
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