Page:Weeds (1923).pdf/101

 Craw an' Elmer. Come on, Craw, pitch 'er to me, an' we'll make it a three-handed game."

By and by Judith came out to the well to get a bucket of water. Jerry glimpsed her out of the corner of his eye as she worked the pump handle up and down. But he was careful not to turn his head in her direction.

"Jerry Blackford's aout there in all his Sunday clothes a-playin' ketch with the boys," she announced to Luella, as she set the bucket down. "I wonder where he's been to."

Jerry played catch until it was chore time. Then he went home, passing the house with his head turned in the opposite direction. Judith and Luella, peering out of the kitchen window, saw him go.

For four successive Sundays Jerry repeated this performance. By the second Sunday the girls had formed a pretty shrewd notion of the reason for his peculiar behavior.

"I'm jes a-goin' to set still an' see haow long he keeps it up," said Judith wickedly, as she sat by the kitchen window trimming a hat with peacock feathers that had molted from the tail of Aunt Eppie's peacock. "I'm a-goin' to sew the feathers all raound an' raound the brim, Elly; an' then have some a-droppin' daown behind. Won't it make a nice hat?"

The longer Jerry continued to come on Sundays in his best clothes, the more amusement he provided for Judith. She felt gratified by his attentions; but she took no interest in him any more than in any of the other young fellows of the neighborhood, with all of whom she dearly loved to coquette. So she was not at all impatient at this slow courtship. She liked to go out and draw water or hang something on the line in order to see Jerry turn his head away from her. Often she found it necessary to go into the barnyard to feed the chickens or slop the hogs; and would stop and exchange a few casual words with him for the pleasure of watching his embarrassment and enjoying his discomfiture when she turned away.

On the fourth Sunday, as Jerry was hanging about the barnyard with the boys, he saw Dick Whitmarsh drive up to the Pippinger door in a newly-washed buggy. In a few moments