Stevie envied him. That Ludie! He, too, cocked his cap at a jaunty angle, jingled marbles in his pocket, and swaggered down Main Street. On the Christophers' lawn, little girls in white pinafores were playing grownups at a tea party. A Newfoundland sat solemnly beside a doghouse half his size. Stevie yearned for a dog. He wondered whether God had a dog in the sky.

He meandered down Pike Street, past the First National Bank with its green window shades. He crossed the tracks to Delaware House, where ladies in gay dresses and men in straw boaters and waxed mustaches crowded the verandah. A tall lady, with a ruffled collar very low on her bosom, turned insolent green eyes upon him. She was taller than Aggie. She was so beautiful with her rosy mouth and haughty air that she had to be wicked. Fiddles screeched; a piano tinkled.

``P.J.'' -- as Ludie called the town -- was crowded with summer people who came to the mountains to escape the heat in the big cities. They stayed at hotels and boardinghouses, or at private homes. Rich people went to Delaware House, Opera House, American House or Fowler House.