Page:Chetyates00yateiala.pdf/45

 mine that he lost. Why, I used to find something to chuck into the wrong side of the scales every day, until it weighed so much that I didn't have any use for him at all;—and then, one day, after more than six months of that sort of thing, I saw him do something that was so white, that, gee! there wasn't a thing in the bad scoop that could weigh a featherweight against it,—it just simply went up in the air, and though it's teetered a good deal since, it's never dropped below the other, not a hair's breadth. And then I saw that Bess didn't like him because she didn't know him very well, and saw only his rowdy ways, and so the bad scoop was away down with her; and Fred Walker knew him better than either of us—

And just then Bess broke in. "Well?" she said.

"I was just trying to see how the idea worked out," I said; "and it looks good to me."

"Well, now," said Bess, spreading her hands out on her knees, "here's what I'm going to do about that other girl:—I'm going to keep my eyes open from the very start, to find things to throw into the good side of the scale,—I'm going to put in every little wee thing that will help to