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 he was galvanized to see Judith come out, radiant in her Sunday best, with the peacock hat glowing iridescently above her black hair. She and Dick got into the buggy and drove gaily away.

Jerry went home almost immediately, feeling like a small rooster that has been chased out of the cornfield by a larger one. He savagely pulled off his good clothes, put on his comfortable old overalls, went out to the barn and fell to cursing and currying the horses with all his might.

The next Sunday Jerry appeared in the Pippinger wagon drive very early in the afternoon. He was driving Jinny, the spirited four-year-old bay mare; and the Blackford family buggy was washed and polished to resplendence.

"Hey, Judy!" he shouted in loud, careless-like fashion from the buggy seat.

He had to shout three or four times before the door at last opened and Judith appeared on the threshold.

"Say, Judy, wanta come—ahem—fer a little drive?"

Jerry was so much embarrassed that he choked in the middle of the invitation and had to clear his throat.

"I'd like to go all right, Jerry; but I promised Dick Whitmarsh I'd go with him this afternoon."

"But—uh—I'm here first, hain't I?" countered Jerry, beginning to feel indignant.

"Waal, s'pose you air! No little bird told me you was a-fixin' to come. An' I promised Dick las' Sunday I'd go with him agin to-day."

"Waal, I'll be damned!"

Jerry muttered this to himself, staring straight before him with blank, unseeing, disappointed eyes.

By this time the whole Pippinger family had collected in the dooryard and were looking at Jerry, the glossy bay mare and the newly washed buggy with the intentness with which children regard a circus parade. He looked up from his blank stare at nothing and encountered their six pairs of eyes all fixed upon him with cool, dispassionate appraisal. Then he caught a glimmer of amusement in Bill's eye and Craw winked at him