Sometimes Louise would make her rounds alone, but often Arthur would join her for an afternoon drive to Huntingdon, and it greatly amused him to listen to his girl-wife’s adroit manner of “pumping the natives.”

About halfway to Huntingdon was the Sizer Farm, the largest and most important in that vicinity.  Old Zeke Sizer had a large family—­five boys and three girls—­and they were noted as quite the most aggressive and disturbing element in the neighborhood.  Old Zeke was rude and coarse and swore like a trooper, so his sons could not be expected to excel him in refinement.  Bill Sizer, the eldest, was a hard drinker, and people who knew him asserted that he “never drew a sober breath.”  The other sons were all quarrelsome in disposition and many a free fight was indulged in among them whenever disputes arose.  They were industrious farmers, though, and the three girls and their mother worked from morning till night, so the farm prospered and the Sizers were reputed to be “well-off.”

Molly, the eldest girl, had attracted Louise, who declared she was pretty enough to arrest attention in any place.  Indeed, this girl was a “raving beauty” in her buxom, countrified way, and her good looks were the pride of the Sizer family and the admiration of the neighbors.  The other two were bouncing, merry girls, rather coarse in manner, as might be expected from their environment; but Molly, perhaps fully conscious of her prettiness, assumed certain airs and graces and a regal deportment that brought even her big, brutal brothers to her feet in adoration.

The Sizers were among the first subscribers to the Millville Tribune and whenever Louise stopped at the farmhouse for news the family would crowd around her, ignoring all duties, and volunteer whatever information they possessed.  For when they read their own gossip in the local column it gave them a sort of proprietary interest in the paper, and Bill had once thrashed a young clerk at Huntingdon for questioning the truth of an item the Sizers had contributed.

One day when Louise and Arthur stopped at the farm, Mollie ran out with an eager face to say that Friday was her birthday and the Sizers were to give a grand party to celebrate it.

“We want you to come over an’ write it up, Mrs. Weldon,” said the girl.  “They’re comin’ from twenty mile around, fer the dance, an’ we’ve got the orchestry from Malvern to play for us.  Pop’s goin’ to spend a lot of money on refreshments an’ it’ll be the biggest blow-out Chazy County ever seen!”

“I think I can write up the party without being present, Mollie,” suggested Louise.

“No; you come over.  I read once, in a novel, how an editor come to a swell party an’ writ about all the dresses an’ things—­said what everybody wore, you know.  I’m goin’ to have a new dress, an’ if ever’thing’s described right well we’ll buy a lot of papers to send to folks we know in Connecticut.”