Seth answered with righteous indignation.

“I come for my shirt,” he declared.

“Your shirt?”

“Yes, my other shirt.  I left it in the kitchen this mornin’, and that—­that helper of mine says you was in the chair along with it.”

“Humph!  Did he have the impudence to say I took it?”

“No—­o.  No, course he didn’t.  But it’s gone and—­and—­”

“What would I want of your shirt?  Didn’t think I was cal’latin’ to wear it, did you?”

“No, but—­”

“I should hope not.  I ain’t a Doctor Mary Walker, or whatever her name is.”

“But you did take it, just the same.  I’m sartin you did.  You must have.”

The lady’s mouth relaxed, and there was a twinkle in her eye.

“All right, Seth,” she said.  “Suppose I did; what then?”

“I want it back, that’s all.”

“You can have it.  Now what do you s’pose I took it for?”

“I—­I—­I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?  Humph!  Did you think I wanted to keep it as a souveneer of last night’s doin’s?”

Her companion looked rather foolish.  He picked up a handful of sand and sifted it through his fingers.

“No—­o,” he stammered.  “I—­I know how partic’lar you are—­you used to be about such things, and I thought maybe you didn’t like the way that button was sewed on.”

He glanced up at her with an embarrassed smile, which broadened as he noticed her expression.

“Well,” she admitted, “you guessed right.  There’s some things I can’t bear to have in my neighborhood, and your kind of sewin’ is one of ’em.  Besides, I owed you that much for keepin’ me out of the wet last night.”

“Oh!  I judged by the way you lit into me for luggin’ you acrost that marsh that all you owed me was a grudge.  I did lug you, though, in spite of your kickin’, didn’t I?”

He nodded with grim triumph.  She smiled.

“You did, that’s a fact,” she said.  “I was pretty mad at the time, but when I come to think it over I felt diff’rent.  Anyhow I’ve sewed on those buttons the way they’d ought to be.”

“Much obliged.  I guess they’ll stay now for a spell.  You always could sew on buttons better’n anybody ever I see.”

“Humph!” . . .  Then, after an interval of silence:  “What are you grinnin’ to yourself about?”

“Hey? . . .  Oh, I was just thinkin’ how you mended up that Rogers young one’s duds when he fell out of our Bartlett pear tree.  He was the raggedest mess ever I come acrost when I picked him up.  Yellin’ like a wild thing he was, and his clothes half tore off.”

“No wonder he yelled.  Caught stealin’ pears—­he expected to be thrashed for that—­and he knew Melindy Rogers would whip him, for tearin’ his Sunday suit.  Poor little thing!  Least I could do was to make his clothes whole.  I always pity a child with a stepmother, special when she’s Melindy’s kind.”