Dab Kinzer | Page 5

motherly commendation.
"I've been really quite proud of you, Dabney," she said, as she laid her
plump hand on the collar of his new coat, and kissed him. "You've
behaved like a perfect little gentleman."
"Only, mother," exclaimed Keziah, "he spent too much of his time with
that sharp-tongued little Jenny Walters."
"Never mind, Kezi," said Dab: "she didn't know who I was till I told
her. I'm going to wear a label with my name on it when I go over to the
village to-morrow."
"And then you'll put on your other suit in the morning," said Mrs.
Kinzer. "You must keep this for Sundays and great occasions."
"Any more weddings coming, right away?" said Dab, with a sharp
glance around upon what remained of the family; but the girls were all

very busy just then, with their books and their sewing, and he did not
get any direct reply. Even his mother walked away after something she
had left in the dining-room.
When the next morning came, Dabney Kinzer was a more than usually
early riser, for he felt that he had waked up to a very important day.
"Dabney," exclaimed his mother, when he came in to breakfast, "did I
not tell you to put on your other suit?"
"So I have, mother," replied Dab: this is my other suit."
"That?" exclaimed Mrs. Kinzer.
"So it is!" cried Keziah.
"So it isn't," added Samantha. "Mother, that is not what he had on
yesterday."
"He's been trading again," mildly suggested Pamela.
"Dabney," said Mrs. Kinzer, "what does this mean?"
"Mean!" replied Dabney. "Why, these are the clothes you told me to
buy. The lot I wore yesterday were a present from Ham Morris. He's a
splendid fellow. I'm glad he got the best of the girls."
That was a bad thing for Dabney to say just then, for it was vigorously
resented by the remaining three. As soon as quiet was restored,
however, Mrs. Kinzer remarked,--
"I think Hamilton should have consulted me about it, but it's too late
now. Anyhow, you may go and put on your other clothes."
"My wedding suit?" asked Dab.
"No, indeed! I mean your old ones,--those you took off night before
last."

"Dunno where they are," slowly responded Dab.
"Don't know where they are?" responded a chorus of four voices.
"No," said Dab. "Bill Lee's black boy had em on all yesterday afternoon,
and I reckon he's gone a-fishing again to-day. They fit him a good sight
better 'n they ever did me."
If Dabney had expected a storm to come from his mother's end of the
table, he was pleasantly mistaken; and his sisters had it all to
themselves for a moment. Then, with an admiring glance at her son, the
thoughtful matron remarked,--
"Just like his father, for all the world! It's no use, girls: Dabney's a
growing boy in more ways than one. Dabney, I shall want you to go
over to the Morris house with me after breakfast. Then you may hitch
up the ponies, and we'll do some errands around the village."
Dab Kinzer's sisters looked at one another in blank astonishment, and
Samantha would have left the table if she had only finished her
breakfast.
Pamela, as being nearest to Dab in age and sympathy, gave a very
admiring look at her brother's second "good fit," and said nothing.
Even Keziah finally admitted, in her own mind, that such a change in
Dabney's appearance might have its advantages. But Samantha
inwardly declared war.
The young hero himself was hardly used to that second suit, as yet, and
felt any thing but easy in it.
"I wonder," he said to himself, "what Jenny Walters would say to me
now. Wonder if she'd know me."
Not a doubt of it. But after he had finished his breakfast, and gone out,
his mother remarked,--
"It's really all right, girls. I almost fear I have been neglecting Dabney.

He isn't a little boy any more."
"He isn't a man yet," exclaimed Samantha. "And he talks slang
dreadfully."
"But then, he does grow so!" remarked Keziah.
"Mother," said Pamela, "couldn't you get Dab to give Dick Lee the
slang, along with the old clothes?"
"We'll see about it," replied Mrs. Kinzer.
It was very clear that Dabney's mother had begun to take in a new idea
about her son.
It was not the least bit in the world unpleasant to find out that he was
"growing in more ways than one," and it was quite likely that she had
indeed kept him too long in roundabouts.
At all events, his great idea had been worked out into a triumphant
success; and, before the evening was over, Pamela replied to a remark
of Samantha's,--
"I don't care. He's taller than I am, and I'd ever