Page:Harold Bell Wright--The shepherd of the hills.djvu/152

 to the girl, whom he had escorted to the party. Sammy, too, when her big companion was not near, suffered from the crude wit of her friends.

"Ollie Stewart don't own me yet," she declared with a toss of the head, when someone threatened to write her absent lover.

"No," replied one of her tormentors, "but you ain't aimin' to miss your chance o' goin' t' th' city t' live with them big-bugs."

In the laugh that followed, Sammy was claimed by a tall woodsman for the next dance, and escaped to take her place on the floor.

"Well, Ollie'll sure make a good man for her," remarked another joker; "if he don't walk th' chalk, she can take him 'cross her knee an' wallop him."

"She'll surely marry him, alright," said the first, "’cause he's got th' money, but she's goin' t' have a heap o' fun makin' Young Matt play th' fool before she leaves th' woods. He ain't took his eyes off her t'night. Everybody's laughin' at him."

"I notice they take mighty good care t' laugh behind his back," flashed little black-eyed Annie Brooke from the Cove neighborhood.

Young Matt, who had been dancing with Mandy Ford, came up behind the group just in time to hear their remarks. Two or three who saw him within hearing tried to warn the speakers, but while everybody around them saw the situation, the two men