During the usual
Sunday-evening singing Champe laughed till Aunt Missouri threatened to
send her to bed. Abner's card slipped from his hand and dropped face
up on the floor. He fell upon it and tore it into infinitesimal
pieces.
"That must have been a love-letter," said Aunt Missouri, in a pause of
the music. "You boys are getting 'most old enough to think about
beginning to call on the girls." Her eyes twinkled.
Ross growled like a stoned cur. Abner took a sudden dive into _Hints
and Helps_, and came up with, "You flatter us, Miss Claiborne,"
whereat Ross snickered out like a human boy. They all stared at him.
"It sounds so funny to call Aunt Missouri 'Mis' Claiborne,'" the lad
of the freckles explained.
"Funny?" Aunt Missouri reddened. "I don't see any particular joke in
my having my maiden name."
Abner, who instantly guessed at what was in Ross's mind, turned white
at the thought of what they had escaped. Suppose he had laid on the
card and asked for Miss Claiborne!
"What's the matter, Champe?" inquired Ross, in a fairly natural tone.
The air he had drawn into his lungs when he laughed at Abner seemed to
relieve him from the numbing gentility which had bound his powers
since he joined Abner's ranks.
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