to add to the supply. As he reached the fence, a barefoot boy, mounted on a horse with no other saddle than a blanket, came galloping down the road, and stopped before him.
“Say,” said the boy, wide-eyed with importance, “is Sally Briggs in there?”
Eliph' said she was.
“Well, say,” said the boy, “she's got to go home to Kilo, right away. Her dad telephoned up, and he don't know whether he's dying or not, and she's got to go right home.”
Eliph' turned and hurried to where Miss Sally was standing.
“I hope it ain't nothing serious, Miss Briggs,” he said, “but that boy has come to give you a message that come by telephone. I think your father ain't well.”
Miss Sally dropped the cake she was holding, and ran to the fence.
“What is it?” she gasped.
“Well,” said the boy, “my dad was in the post office just now, and the telephone bell rang, and he looked around to see where Julius was, and Julius he had gone outside to see what Mr. Fogarty, from up to the Corners, wanted. I don't know what he wanted. Pa didn't tell me. I don't know as pa knew, anyway, but I guess he wanted something, or else he wouldn't have motioned Julius to go out, unless he just wanted to talk to Julium. Mebby he just wanted to ask Julius if there was any mail for him. So pa answered the telephone.”
“Well, what did it say?” asked Miss Sally impatiently.
“You've got a pa, haven't you?” asked the boy.
“Yes,” said Miss Sally.
“Well, has he got false teeth?” asked the boy.
“Yes,” said Miss Sally more impatiently.
“Well, that's all right, then,” said the boy. “Pa couldn't tell exactly whether it was false teeth or not, the telephone at the post office works so poor, and pa ain't no hand at it, anyhow. He said it sounded like false teeth. So you pa wants you to come right home to Kilo. Mebby he's dying.”
“Dying!” cried Miss Sally, as white as a sheet.
“Yes, mebby he is,” continued the boy. “He ain't right sure, but he says you'd better come right home, so if he IS dying you'll be on hand. And, if he ain't, you can help him hunt for them. He says he went to bed last night, same as always, but he don't recall whether he took out his false set of teeth or left them in, and he ain't sure whether he swallowed them last night, or put them down somewheres and lost them. He says he's got a pain like he swallowed them, but he ain't sure but what it's some of the cooking he's been doing that give him that, and anyway he wants you to come right home.”
“Goodness sakes!” exclaimed Miss Sally, “why don't he go see Doc Weaver?”
The boy shook his head.
“I don't know,” he said. “I guess pa didn't think to ask him that. I'll have to ask him when I git back.”
The departure of Miss Sally made a break in the orderly progress of the picnic, for it not only terminated her part of the day's pleasures, but also cut short her visit in Clarence, and she had to say farewell to all the picnickers before she could go.
Eliph' Hewlitt offered to drive her to Clarence, but she refused him, and arranged to have one of the young boys, who had a faster horse, drive her to Kilo. The whole picnic leaned over the rail fence and watched until she was out of sight, and then went on with the lunch, which was just ready when her summons came.
It was a severe blow to Eliph' Hewlitt. He had hoped to have carried his courtship so far during the day that it would have been at least to the third paragraph of the first page of “Courtship—How to Win the Affections,” and now Miss Sally had left, and he had not progressed at all. It reminded him of the quotation in the Alphabet of Quotations, in Jarby's Encyclopedia, “The Course of True Love Never Did Run Smooth.”
Miss Sally's departure, however, and the strange circumstance of it, allowed him to ask questions about her and about Kilo that he could not otherwise have asked. He learned how far she would have to travel to reach Kilo, who her father was, and all that he wished to know. He decided that the only course for him to follow was to omit his canvass of the interlying farms and of the town of Clarence for the present, and follow Miss Sally to Kilo.
When the picnic ended, Irontail had released the rein, and Eliph' Hewlitt drove off, well pleased with his day's work. He had not only secured a wife—for he had no doubt that it only needed an application of the rules set forth in Jarby's Encyclopedia in order to “Win the Affections” of Miss Sally, and “Hold Them When Won,” but he took with him subscriptions for sixteen volumes of Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art, bound in cloth, five dollars, and two bound in morocco, at seven fifty.
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