sincerity she feared. That robbed her of her independence-made her feel feminine and limp-no way at all for a grove owner to feel when in the presence of another grove owner. "But to go back to Christmasor rather to go forward four weeks-grandpa refuses to enter a canoe, as you know, and he can't swim, as perhaps you don't know, so how are we to get to that excitingly unknown quantity, your house?”

"I intend, of course, to send Peter with the carriage."

"The carriage?" she echoed, childishly rejoicing. "Sounds like mentioning 'the trolley' on a South Sea island! Whose carriage, I'd like to know!"

"Mine." He bit the word off short, never sure whether her artlessness was what it seemed or derision.

"If I owned a carriage I'd be good tempered," she stated criticizingly.

"Then God grant that you may some day own a carriage," was his fervent and parting remark.

As the days of the first winter month, so-called, rolled balmily on, the whole fair face of Florida brightened indescribably and her sleepy spirit waked to wonderful life. The roads that had been so dead and deserted during panting summer now creaked industriously from morning till night-and often during the night itself with laden wagons of fruit. Tangerines, oranges, and grapefruit, either banded in packed boxes, or bulging from grove boxes, all hurried down the highways, trying their hardest to be first on the generous Christmas market. And the freezing north sent down its rich people, who filled the hotels and spread the styles; and it sent down its tourists and homeseekers who bought land and made Hunnerton Hopkins

forget that such a melancholy song as "Old Black Joe" was ever written.

"Wouldn't you like to visit a packing house, Miss McAllister?" he asked her, happening to be rattling past while she was interviewing the mail carrier. He drew his clay-spattered auto to a persuasive stop in front of her gate and patted its empty seat eloquently.

"I think I should," she said, suddenly aware that she had not been off her own acres for weeks. "I'm sure I should! Just wait till I finish this arrangement with-with

But nobody knew the mailman's name, and he himself never offered it, doubtless thinking that it was taught in the public schools along with the names of other great men of national renown.

"Den I'm to brung de cullud pahson's horse an' cart to-mo'w morning an' hitch 'em to yo' gate, lady?” he now asked.

"Yes, please," she answered.

The colored preacher being the only man in the state of Florida whose horse and cart were not busy, Laurie was gladly hiring them for her prospective journey to Bill Menefee's turpentine camp in search of those eminently desirable chunks of combustion misnamed "waste."

The negro guardian of the mail kicked his mule kindly and told it beseechingly to "Get along, Balaam," then remembered something very important about the parson's animal.

"De horse wat I brung yo to-mo'w, his name is 'Christianity,' lady," he said.

"That's no name for a horse," said its hirer, spiritually disturbed.

"No, genellay speakin', it ain't," agreed the old man

politely, "but it fits de pahson's lak a shoe, for de minute yo' hol' de whup over dat horse he lope along at a mighty fine pace; but when yo' put de whup back in de whup-socket dat horse stop so short he mos' jerk yo' off de front seat.”

"Thank you for the information," said Laurie, "but does it mean that I'm never to take the whip out, or never to put it back?"

"If yo' needs to reach somewheres," he said carefully, "yo' hol's de whup over Christianity till yo' drap. Get along, Balaam!"

"This is the "Christianity' for me," observed Mr. Hopkins, patting his tin machine's hood when he jumped out to crank up after the mailman's departure had given him the road. "Gasoline's the gospel these days. No, don't get in there, Miss McAllister," he said, checking her occupancy of the tonneau, "sit in front. Now the hauling's begun on the roads there's such chucks in them that the chap on the hind seat don't touch the cushions more'n once in a couple of miles."

With that they started, and truly the way that lightspirited little auto tripped and skidded was a sight to see and something to feel. It was on its honor to kick up more dust than any other car in the state, and when it gamboled past farmhouses it shed squawking but unharmed hens from its tires as a pinwheel sheds sparks.

"Fondness for animals is a trait of these Fodes," said Mr. Hopkins, just managing by a twist of the steeringwheel to save the life of a flustered pig.

Thwarted of its pig, the Fode tried to leap into a ditch. Hopkins restrained it by whispering into its ear something pointedly private.

"I wonder-how people with false teeth-manage

to ride in one of these things!" marveled Laurie, who had shed hairpins and sidecombs and everything else of a detachable nature.

"Same as they eat beefsteak, I reckon,” replied Mr. Hopkins, vastly pleased with the fantasy. "By pretending they don't care for it, or they'd lose 'em sure."

When the packing house was reached it proved to be an ugly zinc building of vast proportions, like a bare barn or empty armory, with a wagon track passing a huge door on its south side and a spur track of the railroad passing a huge door on its north side. This latter track held several refrigerator cars, and, grinding through the dusty ruts of the former, there tirelessly passed the loaded wagons from neighboring groves, pausing only long enough to empty their golden globes into the mysteries of the interior.

When admitted into those mysteries, Laurie watched spellbound the magic process whereby the oranges of Florida practically dance of themselves from their groves to the produce markets of far cities, almost without touch of human hand.

Mr. Hopkins piloted her from one danger zone to another, kindly furnishing instructive data to which she listened not at all, being too busy watching the constantly moving fruits. The place typified oranges on a spree oranges bobbing around in a vat of water; oranges swimming and ducking about in this dirty bath until caught in a mesh of brushes to receive a willy-nilly scrubbing; oranges, clean but dripping, being pushed by these brushes to an endless belt and by the belt being remorselessly carried into a blast furnace by way of its front door; oranges, dry and warm, coming out of the back door; oranges traveling meekly; oranges fighting and twisting and trying to

leap off the belt; no oranges escaping; oranges then getting purposely spilled from the belt to a cascading slope of clean brushes whose business was to polish; oranges skipping and bouncing from the assault of the bristles until finally escaping to the false security of a wooden shelf-very false security, for the shelf itself moved constantly forward, first in a main artery, then ramifying into four arteries, all moving, moving, moving, and carrying the fruit with them to the separate Gehennas of sorters and sizers and wrappers and packers.

Three young girls were stationed on a high platform in front of the main artery. Their occupation was no sinecure. As the staggering, swaggering fruit swept by them the girls worked so quickly and incessantly with muscle and brain that it is a wonder both did not snap with the tension. Just imagine an orange whizzing impudently by you and it being your job to decide properly in that blur of a minute whether the orange was a flawless A-grade, entitled to being shoved to the first-class shelf; or a medium B-grade, belonging to the second-class shelf; or an inferior C-grade, fit only for the steerage; or a scallawag "cull," unfit to go anywhere at any price unless perchance it sneaked through on the bumpers.

But these girls did it, and as the fruit flew by them their fingers flew quicker, sending each yellow passenger spinning into its proper train. At the far end of the building the trains disappeared down slots, sending the passengers tumbling to their respective stations. Arrived, the oranges wandered dazedly down an incline, and sized themselves by falling through holes, wobbling giddily into hoppers, and subsiding into the comparative peace of immense bins.