“I’m a pretty looking old rhinoceros to be gettin’ stuck on a kid, ain’t I, ’Tonia?” said he.
“Not verree good thing,” agreed Antonia, sagely, “for too much old man to likee muchacha.”
“You bet it ain’t,” said Dry Valley, grimly. “It’s dum foolishness; and, besides, it hurts.”
He brought at one armful the regalia of his aberration—the blue tennis suit, shoes, hat, gloves and all, and threw them in a pile at Antonia’s feet.
“Give them to your old man,” said he, “to hunt antelope in.”
Just as the first star presided palely over the twilight Dry Valley got his biggest strawberry book and sat on the back steps to catch the last of the reading light. He thought he saw the figure of someone in his strawberry patch. He laid aside the book, got his whip and hurried forth to see.
It was Panchita. She had slipped through the picket fence and was half-way across the patch. She stopped when she saw him and looked at him without wavering.
A sudden rage—a humiliating flush of unreasoning wrath—came over Dry Valley. For this child he had made himself a motley to the view. He had tried to bribe Time to turn backward for himself; he had—been made a fool of. At last he had seen his folly. There was a gulf between him and youth over which he could not build a bridge even with yellow gloves to protect his hands. And the sight of his torment
