had finally got around to the side porch and was shining full on Colonel Crutcher’s outstretched legs.

“I reckon we’d better move,” he said wearily. “Th’ain’t much peace and quiet these days, what with the sun.”

“Heat’s something awful,” agreed Pete Barnes, “but it ain’t a patchin’ on what it was at Cowpens.”

“Cowpens!” exclaimed a necktie drummer who was stopping at the Rye House for a day or so, “I thought Cowpens was a battle fought between the United States and the English back in 1781.”

“Sure, sure!” agreed Pete, “I was a mere lad, but I was there.” 14

“It was in January, too,” persisted the drummer.

“Of course, but we made it so hot for the—for the other side that this June weather is nothin’ to it.”

There was a general laugh and moving of chairs out of the rays of the inconsiderate sun.

“By golly, we’re just in time,” said Colonel Crutcher. “There comes Miss Ann Peyton’s rockaway. Where do you reckon she’s bound for?”

“Lord knows, but I hope she’s not in a hurry,” said Judge Middleton—judge from courtesy only, having sat on no bench but the anxious bench at the races and being a judge solely of horses and whiskey. “Did you ever see such snails as that old team? Good Golddust breed too! Miss Ann always buys good horses when she does buy but to my certain knowledge that pair is eighteen years old. Pretty nigh played out by now but I reckon they’ll outlast old Billy and Miss Ann.”

“I reckon the old lady has to do some scrimpin’ to buy a new pair,” said Major Fitch. “By golly, I remember when she was the best-looking gal in the county—or any other county for that matter. She was engaged to a fellow in my regiment—killed at Appomattox. She had 15 more beaux than you could shake a stick at, but I reckon she couldn’t get over Bert Mason. She wasn’t much more than a child when the war broke out, but the war aged the girls as it did the boys.”

“I hear tell Miss Ann is on the move right smart lately,” ventured Pete Barnes.

“So they tell me,” continued Major Fitch. “I tell you, havin’ comp’ny now isn’t what it used to be, what with wages up sky-high and all the niggers gone to Indianapolis and Chicago so there aren’t any to pay even if you had the money, and food costin’ three times what it’s wuth. I reckon it is no joke to have Miss Ann a fallin’ in on her kin nowadays with two horses that must have oats and that old Billy to fill up besides.”

“Yes, and Little Josh tells me Miss Ann is always company wherever she stays,” said the Judge. “He wasn’t exactly complaining but just kind of explaining. You see his wife, that last one, just up and said she wouldn’t and she wouldn’t. I reckon Miss Ann kind of wore out her welcome last time she was there because she came just when Mrs. Little Josh was planning a trip to White Sulphur and Miss Ann wouldn’t take the hint and the journey had to be put off and then the railroad strike came along and 16 Little Josh was afraid to let his wife start for fear she couldn’t get back. Mrs. Little Josh is as sore as can be about it and threatens if Miss Ann comes any more that she will invite all of her own kin at the same time and see which side can freeze out the other. The old lady hasn’t been there this year and she hasn’t been to Big Josh’s either. Big Josh’s daughters have read the riot act, so I hear, and they say if their old cousin comes to them without being invited they are going to try some visiting on their own hook and leave Big Josh to do the entertaining. They say he is great on big talk about family ties and the obligations of kinship but that they have all the trouble and when their Cousin Ann Peyton visits them he simply takes himself off and leaves them to do the work. Big Josh lives up such a muddy lane it’s hard to keep servants.”

Miss Ann’s lumbering carriage had hardly reached the far corner when the attention of the old men on the porch was arrested by a small, low-swung motor car of the genus runabout. No doubt its motor and wheels had been turned out of a factory but the rest of it was plainly home made. It was painted a bright blue. The rear end might have applied for a truck license, as it was evidently intended as a bearer of burdens, but the front part had the air of a racer and the 17 eager young girl at the wheel looked as though she might be more in sympathy with the front of her car than the back. Be that as it may, she was determined not to let her sympathies run away with her but, much to the delight of the dull old men on the Rye House porch, she stopped her car directly in front of them and carefully rearranged a number of mysterious-looking parcels in the truck end of her car.

“Hiyer, Miss Judith?” called Pete Barnes. The girl must stop her engine to hear what the old man was saying.

“What is it?” she called back gaily.

“I just said hiyer?”

“Fine! Hiyer, yourself?” she laughed pleasantly, although stopping the engine entailed getting out and cranking, since her car boasted no self-starter.

All of the old men bowed familiarly to the girl and indulged in some form of pleasantry.

“Bootlegging now, or what are you up to?” asked Major Fitch.

“Worse than that—perfumes and soaps, tooth pastes and cold creams, hair tonics and henna dips, silver polish and spot removers—pretty near everything or a little of it; but I’m going to come call on all of you when I get my wares sorted out.” 18

“Do! Do!” they responded, but she was in and off before they could say more.

“Gee, that’s a pretty girl!” exclaimed the necktie drummer.

“I reckon she is,” grunted Colonel Crutcher, “pretty and good and sharp as a briar and quick as greased lightning. There isn’t a girl like her anywhere around these parts. I don’t see what the young folks of the county are thinking about, leaving her out of all their frolics.”

“Well, you see—” put in another old man.

“Yes, I see the best-looking gal of the bunch and the spunkiest and the equal of any of them and the superior of most as far as manners and brains are concerned, just because she comes of plain folks—”

“A little worse than plain, Crutcher,” put in Judge Middleton. “Those Bucks—”

“Oh, then she lives at Buck Hill?” asked the drummer.

“Buck Hill! Heavens man! The Bucknors live at Buck Hill and are about the swellest folk in Kentucky. The Bucks live in a little place this side of Buck Hill. There’s nobody left but this Judy gal and her mother. I reckon their place would have gone for debt if it hadn’t so happened that the trolley line from Louisville cut through it and they sold the right of way 19 for enough to lift the mortgage. They do say that the Bucknors and Bucks were the same folks originally but that was in the early days and somehow the Bucks got down and the Bucknors staid up. Now the Bucknors would no more acknowledge the relationship to the Bucks than the Bucks would expect them to.”

“I should think anybody would be proud to claim kin with a peach like that girl,” said Major Fitch. “Her mother is a pretty good sort too, but slow. I reckon when they get cousinly inclined they always think of old Dick Buck, Judy’s grandfather, who was enough to cool the warmest feelings of kinship.”

Nodding assent to the Major’s remark, the veterans lapsed into sleepy silence.