Waifs and Strays, etc | Page 7

to shine forth and do honor to the coming
festival.
At the gate stood Tonia. with undisguised tears upon her cheeks. In her
hand she held Burrow's Lone Elm hat, and it was at its white roses,
hated by her, that she wept. For her friends were telling her, with the
ecstatic joy of true friends, that cart-wheels could not be worn, being
three seasons passed into oblivion.
"Put on your old hat and come, Tonia," they urged.
"For Easter Sunday?" she answered. "I'll die first." And wept again.
The hats of the fortunate ones were curved and twisted into the style of
spring's latest proclamation.
A strange being rode out of the brush among them, and there sat his
horse languidly. He was stained and disfigured with the green of the
grass and the limestone of rocky roads.
"Hallo, Pearson," said Daddy Weaver. "Look like you've been breaking
a mustang. What's that you've got tied to your saddle--a pig in a poke?"
"Oh, come on, Tonia, if you're going," said Betty Rogers. "We mustn't

wait any longer. We've saved a seat in the buckboard for you. Never
mind the hat. That lovely muslin you've got on looks sweet enough
with any old hat."
Pearson was slowly untying the queer thing on his saddle. Tonia looked
at him with a sudden hope. Pearson was a man who created hope. He
got the thing loose and handed it to her. Her quick fingers tore at the
strings.
"Best I could do," said Pearson slowly. "What Road Runner and me
done to it will be about all it needs."
"Oh, oh! it's just the right shape," shrieked Tonia. "And red roses! Wait
till I try it on!"
She flew in to the glass, and out again, beaming, radiating, blossomed.
"Oh, don't red become her?" chanted the girls in recitative. "Hurry up,
Tonia!"
Tonia stopped for a moment by the side of Road Runner.
"Thank you, thank you, Wells," she said, happily. "It's just what I
wanted. Won't you come over to Cactus to-morrow and go to church
with me?"
"If I can," said Pearson. He was looking curiously at her hat, and then
he grinned weakly.
Tonia flew into the buckboard like a bird. The vehicles sped away for
Cactus.
"What have you been doing, Pearson?" asked Daddy Weaver. "You
ain't looking so well as common."
"Me?" said Pearson. "I've been painting flowers. Them roses was white
when I left Lone Elm. Help me down, Daddy Weaver, for I haven't got
any more paint to spare."

ROUND THE CIRCLE
[This story is especially interesting as an early treatment (1902) of the
theme afterward developed with a surer hand in The Pendulum.]
"Find yo' shirt all right, Sam?" asked Mrs. Webber, from her chair
under the live-oak, where she was comfortably seated with a paper-
back volume for company.
"It balances perfeckly, Marthy," answered Sam, with a suspicious
pleasantness in his tone. "At first I was about ter be a little reckless and
kick 'cause ther buttons was all off, but since I diskiver that the button

holes is all busted out, why, I wouldn't go so fur as to say the buttons is
any loss to speak of."
"Oh, well," said his wife, carelessly, "put on your necktie--that'll keep it
together."
Sam Webber's sheep ranch was situated in the loneliest part of the
country between the Nueces and the Frio. The ranch house--a two-room
box structure--was on the rise of a gently swelling hill in the midst of a
wilderness of high chaparral. In front of it was a small clearing where
stood the sheep pens, shearing shed, and wool house. Only a few feet
back of it began the thorny jungle.
Sam was going to ride over to the Chapman ranch to see about buying
some more improved merino rams. At length he came out, ready for his
ride. This being a business trip of some importance, and the Chapman
ranch being almost a small town in population and size, Sam had
decided to "dress up" accordingly. The result was that he had
transformed himself from a graceful, picturesque frontiersman into
something much less pleasing to the sight. The tight white collar
awkwardly constricted his muscular, mahogany-colored neck. The
buttonless shirt bulged in stiff waves beneath his unbuttoned vest. The
suit of "ready-made" effectually concealed the fine lines of his straight,
athletic figure. His berry-brown face was set to the melancholy dignity
befitting a prisoner of state. He gave Randy, his three-year-old son, a
pat on the head, and hurried out to where Mexico, his favorite saddle
horse, was standing.
Marthy, leisurely rocking in her chair, fixed her place in the book with
her finger, and turned her head, smiling mischievously as she noted the
havoc Sam had wrought with his appearance