I went to him and he laid a silver piece in the palm of my hand.  Aunt Deel began to hurry about getting dinner ready while Uncle Peabody and I sat down on the porch with our guests, among whom was a pretty blue-eyed girl of about my own age, with long, golden-brown hair that hung in curls.

“Sally, this is Barton Baynes—­can’t you shake hands with him?” said Mrs. Dunkelberg.

With a smile the girl came and offered me her hand and made a funny bow and said that she was glad to see me.  I took her hand awkwardly and made no reply.  I had never seen many girls and had no very high opinion of them.

My attentive ears and eyes began to gather facts in the history of the Dunkelbergs.  Mr. Dunkelberg had throat trouble, and bought butter and cheese and sent it to Boston, and had busted his voice singing tenor, and was very rich.  I knew that he was rich because he had a gold watch and chain, and clothes as soft and clean as the butternut trousers, and a silver ring on his finger, and such a big round stomach.  That stomach was the most convincing feature of all and, indeed, I have since learned that the rounded type of human architecture is apt to be more expensive than the angular.

As we sat there I heard the men talking about the great Silas Wright, who had just returned to his home in Canton.  He had not entered my consciousness until then.

While I sat listening I felt a tweak of my hair, and looking around I saw the Dunkelberg girl standing behind me with a saucy smile on her face.

“Won’t you come and play with me?” she asked.

I took her out in the garden to show her where my watermelon had lain.  At the moment I couldn’t think of anything else to show her.  As we walked along I observed that her feet were in dainty shiny button-shoes.  Suddenly I began to be ashamed of my feet that were browned by the sunlight and scratched by the briers.  The absent watermelon didn’t seem to interest her.

“Let’s play house in the grove,” said she, and showed me how to build a house by laying rows of stones with an opening for a door.

“Now you be my husband,” said she.

Oddly enough I had heard of husbands but had only a shadowy notion of what they were.  I knew that there was none in our house.

“What’s that?” I asked.

She laughed and answered:  “Somebody that a girl is married to.”

“You mean a father?”

“Yes.”

“Once I had a father,” I boasted.

“Well, we’ll play we’re married and that you have just got home from a journey.  You go out in the woods and then you come home and I’ll meet you at the door.”

I did as she bade me but I was not glad enough to see her.

“You must kiss me,” she prompted in a whisper.

I kissed her very swiftly and gingerly—­like one picking up a hot coal—­and she caught me in her arms and kissed me three times while her soft hair threw its golden veil over our faces.