“I never went, so I don’t know.”

“Not really?  You don’t mean they haven’t even got a moving picture place In Hedgeville?  I never heard of such a thing!”

Bessie laughed.

“Moving pictures are pretty new, Dolly.  No one could go to them until a little while ago, no matter where they lived, or how much money they had.  And I guess people got along all right without them.”

“Yes, but they had to get along without lots of things until they were invented—­telephones and electric lights, and lots and lots of useful things like that.  But you wouldn’t expect us to get along without them now, would you?”

“I guess it’s only the things we know about that we really need, Dolly.  If we don’t know about a lot of these modern things, we keep right along getting on without them.  Like Hedgeville—­the only man there who has a telephone is Farmer Weeks.”

“Yes,” said Dolly triumphantly, “and he’s got more money than all the rest of the people in the place put together, hasn’t he!”

Bessie laughed.

“And all this just because you want an ice-cream soda!  What will you do if you really can’t have one, Dolly?”

“I don’t know!  I’m just hankering for one—­my mouth is watering from thinking about it!”

“We might ask this boy.  Miss Eleanor said his name was Stubbs, Walter Stubbs.”

Bessie smiled to herself as she saw how surprised Dolly was trying to seem at the discovery that they had come to the part of the field where Walter was working.  He was red to the ears, but Bessie could tell from the way he was looking at Dolly that the city girl, with her smart clothes and her pretty face, had already made a deep impression on the farm boy.  Now as the two girls approached, he looked at them sheepishly, standing first on one foot, and then on the other.

“Do you work all the time?” Dolly asked him, impishly, darting a look at Bessie.

“Cal’late to—­most of the time,” said Walter.

“Don’t you ever have any fun?  Don’t you ever meet a couple of girls and treat them to ice-cream soda, for instance?”

“Oh, sure!” said Walter.  “Year ago come October Si Hinkle an’ I, we went to the city for the day with the gals we was buzzin’ then an’ we bought ’em each an ice-cream sody.”

“Did you have to go to the city to do that?” said Dolly.

“Sure!  Ain’t no place nigher’n that.  Over to Deer Crossin’ there’s a man has lemon pop in bottles sometimes, but he ain’t got no founting like we saw in the city, nor no ice-cream, neither.”

Dolly was a picture of woe and disappointment.

“Tell yer what, though,” said Walter, bashfully.  “Saturday night there’s a goin’ to be an ice-cream festival over to the Methodist Church at the Crossing, an’ I’m aimin’ ter go, though my folks is Baptists.  I’ll treat yer to a plate of ice-cream over there.”

“Will you, really?” said Dolly, brightening up and looking as pleased as if the ice-cream soda she wanted so much had suddenly been set down before her in the field.