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“Isn’t he?” stammered Shandon, nervously.

“He’s about the biggest feller for nine months I ever saw,” said Mrs. Larabee, generously. “He could eat Thelma for breakfast!”

“Johnnie–and he ain’t quite seven yet!” protested Shandon, eagerly.

Mrs. Larabee gave her an astonished look, puckered up her forehead, nodded profoundly.

“That’s right,” she said. Then she dragged the wriggling small body from Shandon’s lap and held the wondering, soft little face against her own.

“You come to Aunt Johnnie a minute,” said she, “you fat old muggins! Look at him, Shandon. He knows I’m strange. Yes, ‘course you do! He wants to go back to you, Shandy. Well, what do you know about that? Say, dearie,” continued Mrs. Larabee, in a lower tone, “you’ve got a terrible handsome boy, and what’s more, he’s Dan’s image.”

Mrs. Waters gathered the child close to her heart. “He’s awful like Dan when he smiles,” said she, simply. And for the first time their eyes met. “Say, thank you, for the redishes and the custard pie and that cheese, Johnnie,” said Shandon, awkwardly, but her eyes thanked this one friend for much more.

“Aw, shucks!” said Johnnie, gently, as she dislodged a drying clod of mud from the buggy robe. There was a moment’s constrained silence, then Shandon said suddenly:

“Johnnie, what d’you mean by ‘shortening’ him?”

“Puttin’ him in short clothes, dearie. Thelma’s been short since Gran’ma Larabee come down at Christmas,” explained the other, briskly.

“I never knew about that,” said Mrs. Waters, humbly. “Danny’s the first little kid I ever touched. Lizzie Tom tells me what the Indians do, and for the rest I just watch him. I toast his feet good at the fire every night, becuz Dan said his mother useter toast his; and whenever the sun comes out, I take his clothes off and leave him sprawl in it, but I guess I miss a good deal.” She finished with a wistful, half-questioning inflection, and Mrs. Larabee did not fail her.

“Don’t ask me, when he’s as big and husky as any two of mine!” said she, reassuringly. “I guess you do jest about right. But, Shandy, you’ve got to shorten him.”

“Well, what’ll I get?” asked Shandon.

Mrs. Larabee, in her element, considered.

“You’ll want about eight good, strong calico rompers,” she began authoritatively. Then suddenly she interrupted herself. “Say, why don’t you come over to the hotel with me now,” she suggested enthusiastically. “I’m just finishing my wash, and while I wrench out the last few things you can feed the baby; than I’ll show you Thelma’s things, and we can have lunch. Then him and Thel can take their naps, and you ‘n’ me’ll go over to Miss Bates’s and see what we can git. You’ll want shoes for him, an’ a good, strong hat–“

“Oh, honest, Johnnie–” Shandon began to protest hurriedly, in her hunted manner, and with a miserable glance toward the home road. “Maybe I’ll come up next week, now I know what you meant–“

“Shucks! Next week nobody can talk anything but wedding,” said Johnnie, off guard.

“Whose wedding?” Shandon asked, and Johnnie, who would have preferred to bite her tongue out, had to answer, “Mary Dickey’s.”

“Who to?” said Shandon, her face darkening. Johnnie’s voice was very low.

“To the doc’, Shandy; to Arnold Lowell.”

“Oh!” said Shandon, quietly. “Big wedding, I suppose, and white dresses, and all the rest?”

“Sure,” said Johnnie, relieved at her pleasant interest, and warming to the subject. “There’ll be five generations there. Parker’s making the cake in Sacramento. Five of the girls’ll be bridesmaids–Mary Bell and Carrie and Jane and the two Powell girls. Poor Mrs. Dickey, she feels real bad. She–“

“She don’t want to give Mary up?” said Shandon, in a hard voice. She began to twist the whip about in its socket. “Well, some people have everything, it seems. They’re pretty, and their folks are crazy about ’em, and they can stand up and make a fuss over marrying a man who as good as killed some other woman’s husband,–a woman who didn’t have any one else either.”