Every year
she sent forth battalions of cakes, pies, sweet pickles, beaten
biscuit, crocheted doilies, and crazy-quilts to capture the blue
ribbon.
"Don't put the window up!" she warned Sandy. "I know it's stifling,
but I can't have the dust coming in. Why don't you go on in the
house?"
Mrs. Hollis always spoke of the kitchen and dining-room as if they
were not a part of the house.
"Can't ye tell me something that's good for the sunburn?" asked
Sandy, anxiously. "It's a dressed-up shooting-cracker I'll be
resembling the morrow, in spite of me fine clothes."
"Buttermilk and lemon-juice," recommended Mrs. Hollis, as she placed
the last marshmallow on the roof of a four-story cake.
Sandy would have endured any discomfort that day in order to add one
charm to his personal appearance. He used so many lemons there were
none left for the judge's lemonade when he came home for dinner.
"Just home from the post-office?" he asked when he saw Sandy enter the
dining-room with his hat on.
"Jimmy Reed's doing my work to-day," Sandy said apologetically. "And
if you please, sir, I'll be keeping my hat on. I have just washed my
hair, and I want it to dry straight."
The judge looked at the suspicious turn of the thick locks around the
brim of the stiff hat and smiled.
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