"Couldn't nobody do any better than that with one of them twins. I won't
try. If I have to 'muse her it has to be in my own way." And with her
head in the air the Bunch marched up the walk to the house.

At this Polk shouted and the rest of us laughed.

"Polk, please don't encourage Henrietta in the way she treats me and her
little sisters," Sallie begged between her laughs and her half-swallowed
sobs. "I need my friends' help with my children, not to have them make
it hard for me. Henrietta is devoted to you and you could influence her
so for the best. Please try to help me make a real woman out of her and
not some sort of a terrible--terrible suffragette."

Sallie is the most perfectly lovely woman I almost ever saw. She has
great violet eyes with black lashes that beg you for a piece of your
heart, and her mouth is as sweet as a blush rose with cheeks that almost
match it in rosiness. She and the babies always remind me of a cluster
rose and roses, flower and buds, and I don't see why every man that sees
her is not mad about her. They all used to be before she married, and I
suppose they will be again as soon as the crepe gets entirely worn off
her clothes. As she stood with the bubbly baby in her arms and looked
up at Polk I couldn't see how he could take it calmly.

"Sallie," he answered seriously, with a glint in his eyes over at me,
"if you'll give me a few days longer, I will then have found out by
experience what a real woman is and I'll begin on Henrietta for you
accordingly."

"Don't be too hard on the kiddie," Cousin James answered him with the