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Page 6
Lloyd added, quickly:
"Eugenia, Joyce, or Elizabeth,
Which of the three shall we like best?"
"Joyce," said Rob, promptly.
"I think so, too," agreed the Little Colonel, stooping to fasten the
locust blossoms more securely behind the pony's ears.
"Well, the invitations are off now. Come on, Tarbaby, and see if you
can't beat Bobby Moore's old gray hawse so bad it will be ashamed to
evah race again."
With that the little black pony was off like an arrow toward Locust,
with the big gray horse thundering hard at its heels.
The dust flew, dogs barked, and chickens ran squawking across the road
out of the way. Heads were thrust out of the windows as the two vanished
up the dusty pike, and an old graybeard loafing in front of the corner
grocery gave an amused chuckle. "Beats all how them two do get over the
ground," he said. "They ride like Tarn O'Shanter, and I'll bet a quarter
there's nothing on earth that either of 'em are afraid of."
A little while later the three white envelopes were jogging sociably
along, side by side in a mail-bag, on their way to Louisville. But
their course did not lie together long. In the city post-office they
were separated, and sent on their different ways, like three white
carrier-pigeons, to bid the guests make ready for the Little Colonel's
house party.
CHAPTER II.
"ONE FLEW INTO THE CUCKOO'S NEST."
The letter for Jaynes's Post-office reached the end of its journey
first. It wasn't much of a post-office; only an old case of pigeon-holes
set up in one corner of a cross-roads store. A man riding over from the
nearest town twice a week brought the mail-bag on horseback. So few
letters found their way into this, particular bag that Squire Jaynes,
who kept the store and post-office, felt a personal interest in every
envelope that passed through his hands.
"Miss Elizabeth Lloyd Lewis," he spelled aloud, examining the address
through his square-bowed spectacles with a critical squint. "Now, who
under the canopy might _she_ be?"
There was no one in the store to answer the question but an overgrown
boy who had stopped to get his father's weekly paper. He sat on the
counter dangling his big bare feet against a nail-keg, and catching
flies in his sunburned hands, while he waited for the mail to be
opened.
The squire peered inquiringly at him over the square-bowed spectacles.
"Jake," he asked, "ever hear tell of a Miss Elizabeth Lloyd Lewis up
this way?"
"Wy, sure!" drawled the boy. "That's Betty. The Appletons' Betty. Don't
you know? She's that little orphan they're a-bringin' up. I worked there
a while this spring, a-plowin'."
"Hump!" grunted the squire, slipping the letter into the pigeon-hole
marked "A." "If that's who it is, I know all about her. Precious little
bringing up she'll get at the Appletons', I can tell you that. They keep
her because they're her nearest of living kin, which isn't very near,
after all; fourth or fifth cousins to her father, or something like
that. Any-how, they're all she's got, and her father made some
arrangement with them before he died. Left a little money to pay her
board, they say, but I've heard she works just the same as if she was
living on charity."
"That's the truth," said Jake; "she does. Talk about bringin' up. She
doesn't get any of it. Mrs. Appleton has her hands so full of cookin'
for farm hands and all, that she can't half tend to her own children,
let alone anybody else's. It's Betty that 'pears to be bringin' up the
little Appletons."
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