33.

his mother's dresses and this put him under constant strain, even when he was alone. He was almost to the breaking point. Being away from home for the first time also upset him and his strange Aunt was becoming harder than ever to understant. Aunt Marian repeated her question. "Er--yes, I guess so", he replied.

"I knew it, I knew it", said Aunt Marian. "Your father probably wanted a boy and not getting one tried to do the next best thing and make you into one. Why I'll bet you think you are a boy sometimes because your father deceived you in this matter when you were younger"

Butch scratched his head--the conversation was getting too confusing, to follow.

Aunt Marian didn't approve of the scanty costume of the modern girl and made Butch wear the type of clothes he had worn at his age. In fact she dug out of her num- erous trunks the exact clothing she had worn. Mostly white dresses with long lacey drawers and several petticoats. She even but high heeled buttoned boots on his feet. His figure was flat and disgustingly boyish, she declared, so she forced him into corsets, making him wear them day and night, often coming into his room in the middle of the night to check up and see that he had not loosened them.

The Brown's expected any time to receive a wrathful and explosive letter from Aunt Marian when she discovered the hoax, but though the weeks slipped into months nothing of the sort was forthcoming. Instead the letters from the east continued in the same vein--accepting the boy as a girl. The Brown's were further puzzled when their son began to write also. It was in his handwriting without doubt, but anyone reading its girlish gush would hardly expect the author to be a boy. The Brown's argued that Butch was one of the cleverest sons inthe world to have deceived Aunt Marian for so long. The old gal was apparently not as shrewed as she seemed.

The Brown's biggest worry was when was Butch going to