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afterwards and ask me how come.
    So we compromised on a three-day ad in the Memphis
Commercial Appeal.
(Judge Tip wanted to let well enough alone.) Because it developed that Mr. Springer—my friend—had come through yesterday, and sailed right on to Silver City for the night; but had idled his engine long enough at the drugstore corner to call to DeYancey Clanahan, who was getting a haircut from Mr. Wesley Bodkin next door, to tell him
he
saw Bonnie Dee Peacock the day before in Memphis, when he was passing through. Saw her in Woolworth's. She was trying to buy something. And had her sister with her. Mr. Springer told DeYancey and Mr. Bodkin that he raised his hat and tendered a remark to her, and she put out her tongue at him. That was enough for Mr. Springer.
    Looks like he would have come straight to me with that, but he said he didn't know where I was. Everybody else knew where I was. Everybody knows where everybody is, if they really want to find them. But I suppose if the door to the Beulah is ever pulled to, and Ada's not out cutting the grass, Mr. Springer will always assume that I'm dead.
    Well, I mailed in the ad without saying a word to the post office, and sat back with folded hands. Judge Tip and I didn't breathe a word of what we'd done. Uncle Daniel hopes too much as it is. And he'd rather get a surprise than fly. Besides, it would have hurt his feelings more than anything else I know of to discover the entire world could pick up the morning paper and read at a glance what had happened to him, without him being the one to tell it.
    Lo and behold, they printed it. I put it in the form of a poem while I was about it. It's called "Come Back to Clay."
    Â 
Bonnie Dee Ponder, come back to Clay.

Many are tired of you being away.

O listen to me, Bonnie Dee Ponder,

Come back to Clay, or husband will wonder.

Please to no more wander.

As of even date, all is forgiven.

Also, retroactive allowance will be given.

House from top to bottom now spick and span,

Come back to Clay the minute you can.

Signed, Edna Earle Ponder.

P.S. Do not try to write a letter,

Just come, the sooner the better.
    Â 
    Judge Tip horned in on two lines, and I don't think he helped it any. But it was better then than it may sound now. I cut it out and put it in a drawer to show my grandchildren.
    I don't believe for a minute that she saw it. Somebody with bright eyes, who did, went and told her. And here she came. Nine forty-five the next morning, in she walked at the front door. She looked just exactly the same—seventeen.
    Â 
    The first I knew about it, Uncle Daniel hollered from the dining room out to me in the kitchen, "Edna Earle! Edna Earle! Make haste! She's fixing to cut my throat!"
    I'd been up for hours. I was having Narciss put up his peaches. But I came when he called, spoon and all. He'd jumped up on top of the dining room table where he'd been having a little buttermilk and crackers after breakfast.
    I said, "Why, climb down, Uncle Daniel, it's only Bonnie Dee. I thought that was what you wanted! You'll spill your milk."
    "Hallelujah!" hollers Narciss behind me. "Prayers is answered."
    Here she came, Miss Bonnie Dee, sashaying around the table with her little bone razor wide open in her hand. So Uncle Daniel climbed down, good as gold, and sat back in his chair and she got the doodads and commenced to lather his face, like it was any other day. I suppose she always shaved him first thing, and in the dining room!
    "
Good
evening," I says.
    "Miss Edna Earle," Bonnie Dee turns and remarks to me, "
Court's
opened." There she stood with that razor cocked in her little hand, sending me about my business. "Keep hands down," she pipes to Uncle Daniel, bending down toward him just as bossy, with her little old hip stuck out behind, if you could say she had hips. And when he reached for her, she went around to his other side. I believe she'd missed him.
    So I just politely turned on my heel, leaving them both there with