town like this with every one just looking for an excuse to talk—­but it would be different if all the best people got together and agreed to do it, only most of them would probably back out at the last moment and that smarty on the Recorder would try to be funny about it—­now that one with the long coat doesn’t look so terrible, does it? or do you think so?—­of course it’s almost the same as a skirt except when you climb on or something—­a woman has to think of those things—­wouldn’t Daisy Estelle look rather stunning in that?—­she has just the figure for it.  Here’s this No. 9872 with the Norfolk jacket in this mail-order catalogue—­do you think that looks too theatrical, or don’t you?  Of course for some figures, but I’ve always been able to wear—­And so forth, for a month or so.

“Late in the fall Henrietta Templeton Price done it.  You may not know what that meant to Alonzo Price, Choice Villa Sites and Price’s Addition to Red Gap.  Alonzo is this kind:  I met him the day Gussie Himebaugh had her accident when the mules she was driving to the mowing machine run away out on Himebaugh’s east forty.  Alonzo had took Doc Maybury out and passes me coming back.  ‘How bad was she hurt?’ I asks.  The poor thing looks down greatly embarrassed and mumbles:  ‘She has broken a limb.’  ‘Leg or arm?’ I blurts out, forgetting all delicacy.  You’d think I had him pinned down, wouldn’t you?  Not Lon, though.  ‘A lower limb,’ says he, coughing and looking away.

“You see how men are till we put a spike collar and chain on ’em.  When Henrietta declared herself Alonzo read the riot act and declared marital law.  But there was Henrietta with the collar and chain and pretty soon Lon was saying:  ’You’re quite right, Pettikins, and you ought to have the thanks of the community for showing our ladies how to dress rationally on horseback.  It’s not only sensible and safe but it’s modest—­a plain pair of riding breeches, no coquetry, no frills, nothing but stern utility—­of course I agree.’

“‘I hoped you would, darling,’ says Henrietta.  She went to Miss Gunslaugh and had her make the costume, being one who rarely does things by halves.  It was of blue velvet corduroy, with a fetching little bolero jacket, and the things themselves were fitted, if you know what I mean.  And stern utility!  That suit with its rosettes and bows and frogs and braid had about the same stern utility as those pretty little tin tongs that come on top of a box of candy—­ever see anybody use one of those?  When Henrietta got dressed for her first ride and had put on the Cuban Pink Face Balm she looked like one of the gypsy chorus in the Bohemian Girl opera.