The Brentons | Page 7

to the unspeakable astonishment of Scott, she seated herself
upon the bottom step, smoothed her calico skirt across her little knees,
and prepared to await further developments in tranquil comfort. It was
thus that Scott Brenton first learned the lesson that the feminine mind
only gains the fullest comfort in having the last word, when it is able to
sit by and watch that word sink in and be digested. Later on in his life,
the lesson was repeated again and again, with an increasing list of
corollaries. Oddly enough, too, it was always given to him by the
selfsame teacher, sometimes with mildness, sometimes with spiritual

floggings.
This time, however, she appeared to be contented with the form her
teaching had taken, contented, too, with its effect upon himself.
Accordingly, she made no effort to continue the discussion. She merely
sat there, silent, in the place whence she had ousted him, and gloated on
her victory, sure that in time his masculine impatience would lead him
to break in upon the pause.
She knew her man.
"What's your name?" Scott asked her curtly, after an interval of digging
one heel and then the other into the turf beside the step.
"Catie."
"Catie what?"
"Catie Harrison."
"Huuh!"
She scented criticism in his reply.
"It's better than yours is," she retorted.
"It is not, too," he made counter retort. "Besides, you don't know my
name."
Slowly the little damsel nodded, once, twice.
"Yes, I do. The man told me."
"What man?"
"The man that sells hens' eggs to my mother. I asked him, and he told
me."
Scott eyed her with fierce hostility. Was there no limit to this small

girl's all-penetrating curiosity?
"What is it, then?" he asked defiantly.
"It's Walter Scott Brenton," she assured him. And then she added, by
way of turning her triumph into a crushing rout, "I think it's the
homeliest name I ever heard."
And once again Scott Brenton gritted his teeth upon the fact that he was
downed.
Later, he took his turn for extracting information concerning his
uninvited guest. He extracted it from herself, however, and with
refreshing directness. At the advanced age of seven years, one sees no
especial use in conventional beatings about the bush. One goes straight
to the point, or else one keeps still entirely; and, at that phase of his
existence, keeping still was not Scott Brenton's forte. Indeed, he was
later than are the most of us in learning the lesson that the keenest
social weapon lies in reticence.
The starchy little damsel, it appeared, was the daughter of a petty
farmer, lately come into the village. She was an only child; her home
was the third house up the street, and her mother, busy about her
household tasks and already a good deal under the thumb of her small
daughter, considered her whole maternal duty done when the child was
washed and curled and clothed in starch, and then turned out to play.
Catie was able to look out for herself, Catie's mother explained
contentedly to her new neighbours, and she knew enough to come
home, when she was hungry. Best let her go her ways, then. She would
learn to be a little woman, all the sooner; and, in the meantime, it was a
great deal easier to do the housework without having a child under foot
about the kitchen.
And go her ways the little damsel did, with only her guardian angel to
see to it that her way was not the wrong one. By the time her father's
first week's rent was due, Catie had made acquaintance with every
inhabitant of the village, from the Methodist minister down to the
blacksmith's bob-tailed cat. Not only that; but Catie, by dint of many

questions, had discovered why the Methodist minister's wife was buried
in the churchyard with a slice of marble set up on top of her, and why
the blacksmith's bob-tailed cat lacked the major portion of her left ear.
If ever there was a gossip in the making, it was Catie Harrison. More
than that, her accumulated gossip was sorted out and held in reserve,
ready to be applied to any end that suited her small convenience. Scott
Brenton found that fact out to his cost, when the story of his camp and
his subsequent spanking came back upon him by way of the man that
sold the hens' eggs, in retaliation for his refusal to ask that he himself
and Catie should be allowed to have a ride in the egg-man's wagon.
Catie might be but six years and nine months old; but already her infant
brain had fathomed the theory of effectual relation between the crime
and the punishment. Her ideal Gehenna would be made up of countless
little assorted hells, not of