A Little Norsk Part 6

"Why, what's the matter with the one y' got on? Ain't no holes in it that I can see," looking at it carefully and turning her around as if she were on a pivot.

"Well, ain't it purty short, pap?" she said suggestively.

"I swear, I don't know but it is," conceded Anson, scratching his head; "I hadn't paid much 'tention to it before. It certainly is a lee-tle too short. Lemme see: ain't no way o' lettin' it down, is they?"

"Nary. She's clean down to the last notch now," replied Flaxen convincingly.

"Couldn't pull through till we thrash?" he continued, still in a tentative manner.

"Could, but don't like to," she answered, laughing again, and showing her white teeth pleasantly.

"I s'pose it'll cost suthin'," he insinuated in a dubious tone.

"Mattie Stuart paid seven dollars fer her'n, pap, an' I----"

"Seven how manys?"

"Dollars, pap, makin' an' everythin'. An' then I ought to have a new hat to go with the dress, an' a new pair o' shoes. All the girls are wearin' white, but I reckon I can git along with a good coloured one that'll do fer winter."

"Wal, all right. I'll fix it--some way," Ans said, turning away only to look back and smile to see her dancing up and down and crying:

"Oh, goody, goody!"

"I'll do it if I haf to borrow money at two per cent a month," said he to Bert, as he explained the case. "Hear her sing! Why, dern it! I'd spend all I've got to keep that child twitterin' like that. Wouldn't you, eh?"

Bert was silent, thinking deeply on a variety of matters suggested by Anson's words. The crickets were singing from out the weeds near by; a lost little wild chicken was whistling in plaintive sweetness down in the barley-field; the flaming light from the half-sunk sun swept along the green and yellow grain, glorifying as with a bath of gold everything it touched.

"I wish that grain hadn't ripened so fast, Ans. It's blightin'."

"Think so?"

"No: I know it. I went out to look at it before supper, an' every one of those spots that look so pretty are just simply burnin' up! But, say, ain't it a little singular that Flaxen should blossom out in a desire for a new dress all at once? Ain't it rather sudden?"

"Wal, no: I don't think it is. Come to look it all over, up one side an' down the other, she's been growin' about an inch a month this summer, an' her best dress is gittin' turrible short the best way you can fix it. She's gittin' to be 'most a woman, Bert."

"Yes: I know she is," said Bert, significantly. "An' something's got to be done right off."

"Wha' d' ye mean by that, ol' man?"

"I mean jest this. It's time we did something religious for that girl.

She ain't had much chance since she's been here with us. She ain't had no chance at all. Now I move that we send her away to school this winter. Give her a good outfit an' send her away. This ain't no sort o'

way for a girl to grow up in."

"Wal, I've be'n thinkin' o' that myself; but where'll we send her?"

"Oh, back to the States somewhere; Wisconsin or Minnesota--somewhere."

"Why not to Boomtown?"

"Well, I'll tell yeh, Ans. I've been hearing a good 'eal off an' on about the way we're bringin' her up here 'alone with two rough old codgers,' an' I jest want to give her a better chance than the Territory affords. I want her to git free of us and all like us, for a while; let her see something of the world. Besides, that business over in Belleplain to-day kind o' settled me. The plain facts are, Ans, the people are a little too free with her because she is growin' up here----"

"I know some fellers that won't be again."

"Well, they are beginnin' to wink an' nudge each other an' to say----"

"Go on! What do they say?"

"They say she's goin' to be a woman soon; that this fatherly business is bound to play out."

"I'd like to see anybody wink when I'm around. I'd smash 'em!" said Anson through his set teeth. "Why, she's our little babe," he broke out, as the full significance of the matter came to him. "My little un; I'm her ol' pap. Why----" He ended in despair. "It's none o' their darn business."

"There ain't no use o' howlin', Ans. You can't smash a whole neighborhood."

"But what are we goin' to do?"

"Well, I'll tell ye what we mustn't do. We mustn't tog her out jest yet."

"Why not?" asked Anson, not seeing these subtle distinctions of time and place.

"Because, you tog her out this week or next, without any apparent reason, in a new hat an' dress an' gloves, an' go down to one o' these sociables with her, an' you'd have to clean out the whole crowd. They'd all be winkin' an' nudgin' an' grinnin'--see?"

"Wal, go on," said the crushed giant. "What'll we do?"

"Just let things go on as they are for the present till we git ready to send her to school."

"But I promised the togs."

"All right. I've stated the case," Gearheart returned, with the air of a man who washed his hands of the whole affair.

Anson rose with a sudden gesture. "Jest hear her! whistlin' away like a lark. I don't see how I'm goin' to go in there an' spoil all her fun; I can't do it, that's all."

"Well, now, you leave it all to me. I'll state the case to her in a way that'll catch her--see if I don't. She ain't no common girl."

It was growing dark as they went in, and the girl's face could not be seen.

"Well, Bert, are y' ready to help churn?"

"Yes, I guess so, if Ans'll milk."

"Oh, he'll milk; he jest loves to milk ol' Brindle when the flies are thick."

"Oh, you bet," said Ans, to make her laugh.

"Now, Flaxen," coughed Gearheart in beginning, "we've been discussin'

your case, an' we've come to the conclusion that you ought to have the togs specified in the indictment" (this to take away the gravity of what was to follow); "but we're kind o' up a tree about just what we'd better do. The case is this. We've got to buy a horse to fill out our team, an' that's a-goin' to take about all we can rake an' sc.r.a.pe."

"We may have to git our groceries on tick. Now, if you could only pull through till after----" Anson broke in.

"It's purty tough, Flaxie, an' pap's awful sorry; but if you could jest pull through----"