She turned that
wonderful pink tarlatan lady round and round before the admiring eyes;
but when Joe West, meek and mildly conciliatory, approached the circle,
she clutched her tightly and turned her back on him.
"I'm not going to have Joe West steal another doll," said she. And Joe
colored and retreated.
Years afterwards, when Joe was practising law in the city, and came home
for a visit, and Sarah Jane was so grown-up that she wore a white muslin
hat with rosebuds, and a black silk mantilla, to church, she knew the
whole story, and they had a laugh over it.
SEVENTOES' GHOST
"You needn't waste any more time talkin' about it, Benjamin; you can
jest take that puppy-dog and carry him off. I don't care what you do
with him; you can carry him back where you got him, or give him away, or
swap him off; but jest as sure as you leave him here half an hour
longer, I'll call Jimmy up from the hay-field and have him shoot him. I
won't have a dog round the place, nohow. Couldn't keep Seventoes a
minute; he's dreadful scart of dogs."
"Grandsir--"
"Take that puppy-dog and go along, I tell ye. I won't have any more talk
about it."
Benjamin Wellman, small and slight, sandy-haired and blue-eyed, stood
before his grandfather, who sat in his big arm-chair in the east door.
Benjamin held in his right hand an old rope, which was attached to a
leather strap around a puppy's neck.
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