Mary-'Gusta thought it over. "If 'twas a hundred years from now," she
said, "I guess he wouldn't want me."

The Captain laughed uproariously. "Well, maybe we can discount that
hundred some for cash," he admitted. "Make it twelve or fifteen years.
Then suppose somebody--er--er--" with a wink at Zoeth--"suppose Jimmie
Bacheldor, we'll say, comes and wants us to put you in his hands,
what'll you say then?"

The answer was prompt enough this time.

"I'll say no," asserted Mary-'Gusta, with decision. "Jimmie Bacheldor
hates to wash his hands; he told me so."

All that summer she played about the house or at the store or on the
beach and, when the fall term began, the partners sent her to school.
They were happy and proud men when Miss Dobson, the primary teacher,
said the girl was too far advanced for the first class and entered her
in the second. "Just natural smartness," Captain Shadrach declared.
"Natural smartness and nothin' else. She ain't had a mite of advantages,
but up she goes just the same. Why, Teacher told me she considered her a
reg'lar parachute."

"A parachute's somethin' that comes down, ain't it," suggested Zoeth,
remembering the balloon ascension he had seen at the county fair.

"Humph! So 'tis. Seems as if 'twasn't parachute she said.
'Twas--'twas--"

"Parasol?" suggested Isaiah, who was an interested listener.