how can you keep steady company with him?" they asked again.
All she would answer was, "It's a power."
All the time, of course, the gold buckskin whincher on the little chain around her neck was working. It was saying, "If she meets a man with three X's in his name she must fall head over heels in love with him."
At a band concert in the public square one night she met James Sixbixdix. There was no helping it. She dropped her eyes and threw her smiles at him. And for six weeks they kept steady company going to band concerts, dances, hayrack rides, picnics and high jinks together.
"Why do you keep steady company with him? He's a musical soup eater," her relatives said to her. And she answered, "It's a power—I can't help myself."
Leaning down with her head in a rain water cistern one day, listening to the echoes against
