Weary began to squirm, after the manner of delinquent Beckmans and Pilgreens.  One thing he had learned:  When the schoolma’am rose to irreproachable English, there was trouble a-brew.  It was a sign he had never known to fail.

“I cannot understand the depraved instinct which prompts a man brutally to destroy a life he cannot restore, and which in no way menaces his own—­or even interferes with his comfort.  You may apologize to me; you may even be sincerely repentant”—­the schoolma’am’s tone at this point implied considerable doubt—­“but you are powerless to return the life you have so heedlessly taken.  You have revealed a low, brutal trait which I had hoped your nature could not harbor, and I am—­am deeply shocked and—­and grieved.”

Just here a tiny, dry-weather whirlwind swept around the corner, caught ruffled, white apron and blue skirt in its gyrations and, pushing them wickedly aside, gave Weary a brief, delicious glimpse of two small, slippered feet and two distracting ankles.  The schoolma’am blushed and retreated to the doorstep, but she did not sit down.  She still stood straight and displeased beside him.  Evidently she was still shocked and grieved.

Weary tipped his head to one side so that be might look up at her from under his hat-brim.  “I’ll get yuh another gopher; six, if yuh say so,” he soothed, “The woods is full of ’em.”

The angry, brown eyes of Miss Satterly swept the barren hills contemptuously.  She would not even look at him.  “Pray do not inconvenience yourself, Mr. Davidson.  It is not the gopher that I care for so much—­it is the principle.”

Weary sighed and slid the gun back into his pocket.  It seemed to him that Miss Satterly, adorable as she always was, was also rather unreasonable at times.  “All right, I’ll get yuh another principle, then.”

“Mr. Davidson,” she said sternly, “you are perfectly odious!”

“Is that something nice, Girlie?” Weary smiled trustfully up at her.

“Odious,” explained the schoolma’am haughtily, “is not something nice.  I’m sorry your education has been so neglected.  Odious, Mr. Davidson, is a synonym for hateful, obnoxious, repulsive, disagreeable, despicable—­”

“I never did like cinnamon, anyhow,” put in Weary, cheerfully.

“I did not mention cinnamon.  I said—­”

“Say, yuh look out uh sight with your hair fixed that way.  I wish you’d wear it like that all the time,” he observed irrelevantly, looking up at her with his sunniest smile.

“I wish to goodness I were really out of sight,” snapped the schoolma’am.  “You make me exceedingly weary.”

“Mrs. Weary,” corrected he, complacently.  “That’s what I’m sure aiming at.”

“You aim wide of the mark, then,” she retorted valiantly, though confusion waved a red flag in either cheek.

“Oh, I don’t know.  A minute ago you were roasting me because my aim was too good,” he contended mildly, glancing involuntarily toward the gopher stretched upon its little, yellow back, its four small feet turned pitifully up to the blue.