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Show TIIE DIXIE OWL self down under a squaw bush he buried his head in a pile of sheep-tail- s and sobbed. Suddenly he sat up, picked up one of the tails and looked at it reflectively. The ground about him was strewn with them it was here that the markers had cropped the long tailed lambs. Isaac pulled at the wool, laughed lightheartedly and began scrambling the sheep tails into a pile. Gathering a brimming, wooly armful of them he slipped cautiously over the hi Itop, found a hidden, sunny place and spread the tails carefully on the ground. In an hour he had deposited the last armful and slipped back unnoticed to his work. The shearing was to be completed by the end of the week and its completion to bo celebrated by a dance in the Order. A dance of such rollicking, jolly merriment that all cares and hardships would be forgotten in the very joy of it. Issac received numberless invitations to attend and show the girls how well his trousers were mended, but. he merely blinked his eyes rapidly and said nothing to the great g amazement of the joke-lovin- hearers . In the afternoon of the day before the dance Isaac, with a sack under his arm slipped away unobserved to the sunny spot where Seating reposed the sheep-tailhim-el- f he began comfortably wool from the the tails, stripping which came off easily due to the He waited until the drying. shadows lay dark on the hillside, and then taking the big bulging sack on his back he slipped stealthily away. A tramp of two miles bought him near the road. Here with a contented grunt he dropped the sack, covered it with brush and then grinning up at the friendly twinkling sky, began his return journey to the sheep camp. The next day all was hurry and bustle, the camp was broken up s. and to Isaacs unbounded relief a new herder was sent out. Idle men, feeling it was the last chance at Isaac for some time made the day merry for themselves and a misery for him by their jokes. Escap-in- g in midafternoon he ran recklessly and joyfully, his ribboned trousers flapping grotesquely as he leaped boulders and bushes. At last he stopped, panting, beside a heap of brush under which lay a fat woolsack. Shouldering the sack, Isaac glanced guiltily yet grinningly up and down the road. Seeing no one in sight he stepped boldly onto the highway, and half running and half walking, never pausing, soon covered the four miles which separted Order ville from Glendale. Then he stopped, pulled his hat over his eyes, pegged together two yawning rents in his trousers, shouldered his woolsack again and fairly ran, straight to Homer Boughtens store. In half an hour he emerged a wonderfully changed Isaac. The woolsack was gone and he strut-tingl- y surveyed his long legs incased in yellow trousers which wrinkled about his ankles and fairly twinkled with brass buttons. In the big Order dining room the tables were pushed back against the walls, candles twinkled brightly, and young people laughing loudly and happily, tripped briskly to the gay music of Lem 1rowns fiddle. In the midst of the merriment there fell a sudden hush. Everyone turned. In the door stood Isaac, radiant in a new shirt and .lane surveyed store trousers, him wonderingly, gladly. She had missed him sorely during the long winter; had half forgotten his uncovered limbs; had better remembered his jolly good humor and genuine likeableness. Now when she saw him standing there radiant, satisfyingly covered, de not-too-ni- ce lightfully buttoned, her heart jumped wildly and she choked. She held out her hands ever so little but Isaac saw Jane! he in and two strides had cried, long crossed the room and unblu shingly folded Janes blue homespun close against his pounding heart. For a moment there was an astonished silence, then a tittering ripple spread over the crowd which quickly changed to a deafening roar of laughter, handclapping and pounding of feet. Hut Isaac held the floor bravely. With the two dearest desires of his heart realized he could face a hooting world undaunted. Lem Brown mercifully came to the rescue by striking up a lively quadrille, and Isaac, holding fast to Jane, led her to the very center of the floor. He knew as he bowed grandly right and left, his buttons twinkling, that he was the center- of attraction. Shapeless trousered men glanced enviously and a bit angrily at him, (these last were the sheep shearers), but the girls openly smiled admiring approval and he was happy. But in the very middle of a grand bow, a black shadow loomed up behind Isaac and a stern voice demanded, Brother Jensen, where did you get, those With his heart quaking pants? Isaac turned to confront guiltily, the Bishop of the Order, and quailed before his sternly disapproving eye. Again the Bishop Where did you get demanded, those pants? Isaac gasped. Should he confess that he had stripped the wool from 'numberless lambs tails to trade for these trousers! Confess this before Jane never! He retreated slowly backward into a corner, followed closely by the Bishop. (Some people say the Bishop had a very dear old friend who cared for Jane.) Once in the corner the Bishop demanded again, Now then, Brother Jen- - |
