incessant "teetering" on the toes of small feet, the exhibition of
much bare knee and stocking, and a gurgling accompaniment of childish
laughter. Vehemently applauded, it left the little performer breathless,
but invincible and ready for fresh conquest.
"I kin sing, too," she gasped hurriedly, as if unwilling that the
applause should lapse. "I kin sing. Oh, dear! Kla'uns," piteously, "WHAT
is it I sing?"
"Ben Bolt," suggested Clarence.
"Oh, yes. Oh, don't you remember sweet Alers Ben Bolt?" began Susy, in
the same breath and the wrong key. "Sweet Alers, with hair so brown, who
wept with delight when you giv'd her a smile, and--" with knitted brows
and appealing recitative, "what's er rest of it, Kla'uns?"
"Who trembled with fear at your frown?" prompted Clarence.
"Who trembled with fear at my frown?" shrilled Susy. "I forget er rest.
Wait! I kin sing--"
"Praise God," suggested Clarence.
"Yes." Here Susy, a regular attendant in camp and prayer-meetings, was
on firmer ground.
Promptly lifting her high treble, yet with a certain acquired
deliberation, she began, "Praise God, from whom all blessings flow." At
the end of the second line the whispering and laughing ceased. A deep
voice to the right, that of the champion poker player, suddenly rose
on the swell of the third line. He was instantly followed by a dozen
ringing voices, and by the time the last line was reached it was given
with a full chorus, in which the dull chant of teamsters and drivers
mingled with the soprano of Mrs. Peyton and Susy's childish treble.
Again and again it was repeated, with forgetful eyes and abstracted
faces, rising and falling with the night wind and the leap and gleam of
the camp fires, and fading again like them in the immeasurable mystery
of the darkened plain.
In the deep and embarrassing silence that followed, at last the party
hesitatingly broke up, Mrs. Peyton retiring with Susy after offering
the child to Clarence for a perfunctory "good-night" kiss, an unusual
proceeding, which somewhat astonished them both--and Clarence found
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