Her creed was quick. The scattered dandelion seed sprouted all around her.




Pap Overholt


BY ALICE MACGOWAN

Up and down the long corn rows Pap Overholt guided the old mule and the
small, rickety, inefficient plough, whose low handles bowed his tall, broad
shoulders beneath the mild heat of a mountain June sun. As he went--ever
with a furtive eye upon the cabin--he muttered to himself, shaking his
head:

"Say I sha'n' do hit. Say he don't want me a-ploughin' his co'n. My law!
Whut you gwine do? Thar's them chillen--thar's Huldy. They got to be
fed--they 'bleeged to have meat and bread. Ef I don't--"

Again he lifted his apprehensive glance toward the cabin; and this time it
encountered a figure stepping from the low doorway--a young fellow with an
olive face, delicately cut features, black curling hair, the sleep still
lingering in his dark eyes. He approached the fence--the sorry, broken
fence,--put his hands upon it, and called sharply, "Pap!"

The old man released the plough-handles and came toward the youth,
shrinking like a truant schoolboy called up for discipline.

"Pap, this is the way you do me all the time--come an' plough in my co'n