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 tions of his appetite I kept on trying to get that receipt from Miss Willella. But every time I would say ‘pancakes’ she would get sort of remote and fidgety about the eye, and try to change the subject. If I held her to it she would slide out and round up Uncle Emsley with his pitcher of water and hip-pocket howitzer.

“One day I galloped over to the store with a fine bunch of blue verbenas that I cut out of a herd of wild flowers over on Poisoned Dog Prairie. Uncle Emsley looked at ’em with one eye shut and says:

“‘Haven’t ye heard the news?’

“‘Cattle up?’ I asks.

“‘Willella and Jackson Bird was married in Palestine yesterday,’ says he. ‘Just got a letter this morning.’

“I dropped them flowers in a cracker-barrel, and let the news trickle in my ears and down toward my upper left-hand shirt pocket until it got to my feet.

“‘Would you mind saying that over again once more, Uncle Emsley?’ says I. ‘Maybe my hearing has got wrong, and you only said that prime heifers was 4.80 on the hoof, or something like that.’

“‘Married yesterday,’ says Uncle Emsley, ‘and gone to Waco and Niagara Falls on a wedding tour. Why, didn’t you see none of the signs all along? Jackson Bird has been courting Willella ever since that day he took her out riding.’

“‘Then,’ says I, in a kind of yell, ‘what was all