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CHAPTER IV
THE MARTIN-BOX NEIGHBORS

Marian picked her way up the shore to the board bridge, with Finnegan prancing behind her. She felt a little abashed as she remembered her rather tart indifference to young Burford's cordial invitation of the week before. But all her embarrassment melted away as she crossed the little bridge and met Sally Lou's welcoming face, her warm clasping hands.

"You don't know how hungry I have been to see you," vowed Sally Lou, her brown eyes kindling under the scarlet bonnet.

"We've been counting the hours till we should dare to go to call on Miss Northerner, haven't we, kiddies? This is my son, Edward Fairfax Burford, Junior, Miss Hallowell. Three years old, three feet square, and weighs forty-one pounds. Isn't he rather gorgeous – if he does belong to me! And this is Thomas Tucker Burford. Eighteen months old, twenty-six pounds, and the disposition of an angel, as long as he gets his own way. And this is Mammy Easter, who came all the way from Norfolk with me, to take care of the babies, so that I could live here on the contract with Ned. Wasn't she brave to come out to this cold, lonesome country all for me? And this martin-box is my house, and it is anxious to meet you, too, so come right in!"

Marian climbed the high, narrow outside steps that led to the tiny play-house on stilts, and entered the low, red doorway, feeling as if she had climbed Jack's bean-stalk into fairyland. Inside, the martin-box was even more fascinating. It boasted just three rooms. The largest room, gay with Mother Goose wall-paper and rosy chintz, was obviously the realm of Edward, Junior, and Thomas Tucker. The next room, with its cunning miniature fireplace, its shelves of books, its pictures and photographs, and its broad high-piled desk, was their parents' abode; while the third room boasted fascinating white-painted cupboards and sink, a tiny alcohol stove, and a wee table daintily set.

"Aren't you shocked at folks that eat in their kitchen?" drawled Sally Lou, observing Marian with dancing eyes. "But all our baking and heavy cooking is done for us, over on the quarter-boat. I brought the stove to heat the babies' milk; and, too, I like to fuss up goodies for Ned when he is tired or worried. Poor boys! They're having such an exasperating time with the contract this week! Everything seems possessed to go awry. We'll have to see to it that they get a lot of coddling so's to keep them cheered up, won't we?"

"Why, I – I suppose so. But how did you dare to bring your little children down here? They say that this is the most malarial district in the State."

"I know. But they can't catch malaria until May, when the mosquitoes come. Then I shall send them to a farm, back in the higher land. Mammy will take care of them; and I'll stay down here with Ned during the day and go to the babies at night. They're pretty sturdy little tads. They are not likely to catch anything unless their mother is careless with them. And she isn't careless, really. Is she, Tom Tucker?" She snatched up her youngest son, with a hug that made his fat ribs creak. "Come, now! Let's brew some stylish afternoon tea for the lady. Get down the caravan tea that father sent us, Mammy, and the preserved ginger, and my Georgian spoons. And fix some chicken bones on the stoop for Miss Northerner's puppy. This is going to be a banquet, and a right frabjous one, too!"

It was a banquet, and a frabjous one, Marian agreed. Sally Lou's tea and Mammy's nut-cakes were delicious beyond words. The bright little house, the dainty service, Sally Lou's charming gay talk, the babies, clinging wide-eyed and adorable to her knee, all warmed and heartened Marian's listless soul. She was ravished with everything. She looked in wonder and delight at the high sleeping-porch, with its double mosquito bars and its duck screening and its cosey hammock-beds. ("Ned sleeps so much better here, where it is quiet, than on that noisy boat," Sally Lou explained.) She gazed with deep respect at the tiny pantry, built of soap-boxes, lined with snowy oil-cloth. She marvelled at the exquisite old silver, the fine embroidered table-linen, the delicate china. And she caught her breath when her eyes lighted upon the beautiful painting in oils that hung above young Burford's desk. It was a magical bit of color: a dreamy Italian garden, walled in ancient carved and mellowed stone, its slopes and borders a glory of roses, flaunting in splendid bloom; and past its flowery gates, a glimpse of blue, calm sea. She could hardly turn her eyes away from the lovely vista. It was as restful as an April breeze. And across the lower corner she read the clear tracing of the signature, a world-famous name.

Sally Lou followed her glance.

"You surely think I'm a goose, don't you, to bring my gold teaspoons, and my wedding linen, and my finest tea-set down to a wilderness like this? Well, perhaps I am. And yet the very best treasures that we own are none too good for our home, you know. And this is home. Any place is home when Ned and the babies and I are together. Besides, the very fact that this place is so queer and ugly and dismal is the best of reasons why we need all our prettiest things, and need to use them every day, don't you see? So I picked out my sacredest treasures to bring along. And that painting – yes, it was running a risk to bring so valuable a canvas down here. But doesn't it just rest your heart to look at it? That is why I wanted it with us every minute. You can look at that blue sleepy sky, and those roses climbing the garden wall, and the sea below, and forget all about the noisy, grimy boats, and the mud, and sleet, and malaria, and the cross laborers, and the broken machinery, and everything else; and just look, and look, and dream. That is why I carted it along. Especially on Ned's account, don't you see?"

"Y-yes." At last Marian took her wistful eyes from the picture. "I wish that I had thought to bring some good photographs to hang in Rod's state-room. I never thought. But there is no room to pin up even a picture post-card in his cubby-hole on the boat. I must go on now. I have had a beautiful time."

"There goes your brother this minute! In that little red launch, see? He is going up the ditch. Ring the dinner-bell, Mammy, that will stop him. He can take you and your dog up to Gates's Landing and save you half an hour's muddy walk."

Mammy's dinner-bell pealed loud alarm. Roderick heard and swung the boat right-about. His sober, anxious face lighted as Marian and Sally Lou gayly hailed him.

"I'm glad that you've met Mrs. Burford," he said, as he helped Marian aboard and hoisted Finnegan astern with some difficulty and many yelps; for Finnegan left his chicken-bones only under forcible urging. "She is just about the best ever, and I hope you two will be regular chums."

"I love her this minute," declared Marian, with enthusiasm. "Where are you bound, Rod? Mayn't Finnegan and I tag along?"

Rod's face grew worried.

"I'm bound upon a mighty ticklish cruise, Sis. It is a ridiculous cruise, too. Do you remember what I told you last week about the law that governs the taxing of the land-owners for the making of these ditches?"

"Yes. You said that when the majority of the land-owners had agreed on doing the drainage work, then the law made every owner pay his tax, in proportion to the acreage of his land which would be drained by the ditches, whether he himself wanted the drainage done or not. And you said that some of the farmers did not want the ditches dug, and that they were holding back their payments and making trouble for the contractors; while others were making still more trouble by blocking the right of way and refusing to let the dredges cut through their land. But how can they hold you back, Rod? The law says that all the district people must share in the drainage expenses, whether they like to or not, because the majority of their neighbors have agreed upon it."

"The law says exactly that. Yes. But there are a lot of kinks to drainage law, and the farmers know it. Burford says that two or three of them have been making things lively for the company from the start. But just now we have only one troublesome customer to deal with. And she is a woman, that is the worst of it. She is a well-to-do, eccentric old lady, who owns a splendid farm, just beyond the Gateses. She paid her drainage assessment willingly enough. But now she says that, last fall, the boys who made the survey tramped through her watermelon-field and broke some vines and sneaked off with three melons. At least, so she indignantly states. Maybe it is so; although the boys swear it was a pumpkin-field, and that they didn't steal so much as a jack-o'-lantern. Furthermore, she has put up barb wire and trespass notices straight across the contract right of way; and she has sent us notice that she is guarding that right of way with a gun, and that the first engineer who pokes his nose across her boundary line is due to receive a full charge of buckshot. Sort of a shot-gun quarantine, see? Now we must start dredging the lateral that crosses her land next Monday, at the latest. It must be done at the present stage of high water, else we'll have to delay dredging it until fall. Carlisle planned to call on her to-day, and to mollify her if possible, but he's too sick. So I must elbow in myself, and see what my shirt-sleeve diplomacy can do. I'm glad that I can take you along. Perhaps you can help to thaw her out."

"Of all the weird calls to make! What is the old lady like, Rod?"

"Burford says that she is a droll character. She has managed her own farm for forty years, and has made a fine success of it. Her name is Mrs. Chrisenberry. She is not educated, but she is very capable, and very kind-hearted when you once get on the right side of her. Yonder is her landing. Don't look so scared, Sis. She won't eat you."

Marian's fear dissolved in giggles as they teetered up the narrow board walk to the low brick farm-house. They could not find a door-bell; they rapped and pounded until their knuckles ached. Finnegan yapped helpfully and chewed the husk door-mat. At last, a forbidding voice sounded from the rear of the house.

"You needn't bang my door down. Come round to the dryin' yard, unless you're agents. If you're agents, you needn't come at all. I'm busy."

Meekly Rod and Marian followed this hospitable summons.

Across the muddy drying yard stretched rows of clothes-line, fluttering white. Beside a heaped basket of wet, snowy linen stood a very short, very stout little old lady, her thick woollen skirts tucked up under a spotless white apron, her small nut-cracker face glowering from under a sun-bonnet almost as large as herself. She took three clothes-pins from her mouth and scowled at Rod.

"Well!" said she. "Name your business. But I don't want no graphophones, nor patent chick-feed, nor golden-oak dinin'-room sets, nor Gems of Poesy with gilt edges. Mind that."

Marian choked. Rod knew that choke. Tears of strangling laughter stood in his eyes as he humbly stuttered his errand.

"W-we engineers of the Breckenridge Company wish to offer our sincere apologies for any annoyance that our surveyors may have caused you. We are anxious to make any reparation that we can. And – er – we find ourselves obliged, on account of the high water, to cut our east laterals at once. We will be very grateful to you if you will be so kind as to overlook our trespasses of last season, and will permit us to go on with our work. I speak for the company as well as for myself."

The old lady stared at him, with unwinking, beady eyes. There was a painful pause.

"Well, I don't know. You're a powerful slick, soft-spoken young man. I'll say that much for you." Marian gulped, and stooped hurriedly to pat Finnegan. "And I don't know as I have any lastin' gredge against your company. Them melons was frost-bit, anyway. But if you do start your machinery on that lateral, mind I don't want no more tamperin' with my garden stuff. And I don't want your men a-cavortin' around, runnin' races on my land, nor larkin' evenings, nor comin' to the house for drinks of water. One of them surveyors, last fall, he come to the door for a drink, an' I was fryin' crullers, an' he asked for one, bold as brass. Says I, 'Help yourself.' Well, he did that. There was a blue platter brim full, and if he didn't set down an' eat every single cruller, down to the last crumb! An' then he had the impudence to tell me to my face that they was tolerable good crullers, but that he'd wager the next platterful would taste better than the first, an' he'd like to try and find out for sure!"

"I don't blame him. I'd like to try that experiment myself," said Rod serenely. The old lady glared. Then the ghost of a twinkle flickered under the vasty sun-bonnet.

"Well, as I say, I ain't made up my mind yet. But I'll let you know to-night, maybe. Now you'd better be goin'. Looks like more rain."

"Can't we help you with the clothes first?" asked Marian. The old lady shook out a huge, wet table-cloth and stood on tip-toe to pin it carefully on the line.

"You might, yes. Take these pillow-cases. But don't you drop them in the mud. My clothes-line broke down last week, and didn't I spend a day of it, doin' my whole week's wash over again!"

The strong breeze caught the big cloth and whipped it like a banner. Finnegan, who had been waiting politely in the background, beheld this signal with joy. With a gay yelp he bolted past Marian and seized a corner of the table-cloth in his teeth.

"Scat!" cried Mrs. Chrisenberry, startled. "Where did that pup come from? Shoo!"

Finnegan, unheeding, took a tighter grip, and swung his fat heavy body from the ground. There was a sickening sound of tearing linen. Marian stood transfixed. Rod, his arms full of wet pillow-slips, dashed to the rescue. But he was not in time.

"Scat, I say!" Mrs. Chrisenberry flapped her apron.

Amiable creature, she wanted to play with him! Enchanted, the puppy let go the table-cloth and dashed at her, under full steam. His sturdy paws struck Mrs. Chrisenberry with the force of a young battering-ram. With an astonished shriek she swayed back, clutching at the table-cloth to steady herself. But the table-cloth and clothes-pins could not hold a moment against the onslaught of the heavy puppy. By good fortune, the basketful of clothes stood directly behind Mrs. Chrisenberry. As the faithless table-cloth slid from the rope, back she pitched, with a terrified squeal, to land, safely if forcibly, in its snowy depths.

Marian, quite past speech, sank on the porch steps. Rod stood gaping with horror. Mrs. Chrisenberry rose up with appalling calm.

"You! You come here. You – varmint!"

Finnegan did not hesitate. Trustfully he gambolled up; gayly he seized her apron hem in his white milk teeth and bit out a feather-stitched scallop. Mrs. Chrisenberry stooped. Her broad palm landed heavily on Finnegan's curly ear.

Alas for discipline! Finnegan dodged back and eyed her, amazed. One grieved yelp rent the air. Then, instantly repenting, he leaped upon her and smothered her with muddy kisses. This was merely the lady's way of playing with him. How could he resent it!

Then Rod came to his wits. He seized Mr. Finnegan by the collar and cuffed him into bewildered silence. He caught up the wrecked table-cloth and the miry pillow-slips, he poured out regrets and apologies and promises in an all but tearful stream. Mrs. Chrisenberry did not say one word. Her small nut-cracker face set, ominous.

"You needn't waste no more soft sawder," said she, at length. "I 'low these are just the rampagin' doings I could look for every day if I once gave you folks permission to bring your dredge on my land. So I may's well make up my mind right now. Tell your boss that those trespass signs an' that barb wire are still up, and that they'll most likely stay up till doomsday. Good-mornin'."

"Well! I don't give much for my shirt-sleeve diplomacy," groaned Rod, as they teetered away, down the board walk.

"I'm sorry, Rod." Then Marian choked again. Weak with laughter, she clung to the gate-post. "It was j-just like a moving picture! And when she vanished into the basket – Oh, dear – oh, dear!"

"You better believe it was exactly like a moving picture," muttered Rod. "It all went so fast I couldn't get there in time to do one thing. It went like a cinematograph – Zip! And off flew all our chances for all time. Finnegan, you scoundrel! Do you realize that your playful little game will cost the company a lawsuit and a small fortune besides?"

Finnegan barked and took a friendly nip of Rod's ankle. Finnegan's young conscience was crystal-clear.

"Let's take the launch down to Burford's and tell them our misfortunes," said Rod. "I need sympathy."

The Burfords heard their mournful tale with shouts of unpitying joy.

"Yes, I know, it's hard luck. Especially with Marvin in the sulks and Carlisle sick," said Ned Burford, wiping his eyes. "But the next time you start diplomatic negotiations, you had better leave that dog at home. I'm going over to the house-boat to tell Mr. Carlisle. Poor sick fellow, this story will amuse him if anything can."

He jumped into the launch. A minute later Rod brought it alongside the house-boat and Burford disappeared within.

"Mr. Carlisle, sir!" They heard his laughing voice at the chief's state-room door. "May I come in? Will I disturb you if I tell you a good joke on Hallowell?"

There was a pause. Then came a rush of feet. Burford dashed from the cabin and confronted Rod and Marian. His face was very white.

"Hallowell! Come aboard, quick!" he said, in a shaking voice. "Mr. Carlisle is terribly ill. He's lying there looking like death; he couldn't even speak to me. Hurry!"

CHAPTER V
GOOSE-GREASE AND DIPLOMACY

Roderick leaped aboard. Marian followed, trembling with fear.

Mr. Carlisle lay in his seaman's hammock beside the window. His gaunt hands were like ice. His lean face was ashen gray. But he nodded weakly and put out a shaking, courteous hand.

"Too bad to alarm you thus," he gasped. "I – I was afraid of this. Malaria plays ugly tricks with a man's heart now and then. You'd better ship me to the hospital at Saint Louis. They can patch me up in a week probably. Only, the sooner you can get me there, the better."

"You call the foreman and tell him to get up steam on the big launch, Hallowell." Burford, very pale, took command of the situation. "Miss Hallowell, will you go and bring Sally Lou? I want her right away. She's all kinds of good in an emergency."

Marian fled, her own heart pounding in her throat. But Sally Lou, after the first scared questions, rose to the occasion, steady and serene.

"Light the stove and make our soapstones and sand-bags piping-hot, Mammy. Heat some bouillon and put it into the thermos bottle. Ned, you and the foreman must take him down to Grafton Landing on the launch. The Lucy Lee is due to reach Grafton late this afternoon. I'll catch the Lucy's captain on the long-distance telephone at the landing above Grafton, and tell him to wait at Grafton Landing till you get there with Mr. Carlisle. Then you can put him aboard the Lucy. She will make Saint Louis in half the time that you could make it with the launch. Besides, the Lucy will mean far easier travelling for Mr. Carlisle."

"I never thought of the Lucy! I'd meant to wait with him at the Landing and take the midnight train. But the steam-boat will be a far easier trip. Sally Lou, you certainly are a peach!" Young Burford looked at his wife with solemn admiration. "Go and telephone, quick. We'll have Carlisle ready to start in an hour."

In less than an hour the launch was made ready, with cot and pillows and curtains, as like an ambulance as a launch could well be. With clumsy anxious pains Roderick and Burford lifted their chief aboard. Marian hung behind, eager to help, yet too frightened and nervous to be of service. But Sally Lou, her yellow hair flying under her ruffly red bonnet, her baby laughing and crowing on her shoulder, popped her flushed face gayly under the awning to bid Mr. Carlisle good-by.

"If it wasn't for these babies I'd go straight along and take care of you myself, Mr. Carlisle," she cried. "But the hospital will take better care of you than I could, I reckon. And the week's vacation will do you no end of good. Besides it will set these two lazybones to work." She gave her husband a gentle shake. "Ned and Mr. Hallowell will have to depend on themselves, instead of leaving all the responsibility to you. It will be the making of them. You'll see!"

"Perhaps that is true." Carlisle's gray lips smiled. He was white with suffering, but he spoke with his unvarying kind formality. "I am leaving you gentlemen with a pretty heavy load. But – I am not apprehensive. I know that you boys will stand up to the contract, and that you will carry it on with success. Good-by, and good luck to you!"

The launch shot away down-stream. Sally Lou looked after it. Marian saw her sparkling eyes grow very grave.

"Mr. Carlisle is mighty brave, isn't he? But he will not come back to work in a week's time. No, nor in a month's time either if I know anything about it. But there's no use a-glooming, is there, Thomas Tucker! You two come up to my house and we'll have supper together and watch for Ned; for if he meets the Lucy at Grafton he can bring the launch back by ten to-night."

Sally Lou was a good prophet. It was barely nine when Ned's launch whistled at the landing. Ned climbed the steps, looking tired and excited.

"Yes, we overhauled the Lucy, all right. Mr. Carlisle seemed much more comfortable when we put him aboard. He joked me about being so frightened and said he'd come back in a day or so as good as new. But – I don't know how we'll manage here. With Carlisle laid up, and Marvin gone off in the sulks, for nobody knows how long – Well, for the next few days this contract is up to us, Hallowell. That is all there is to that. And we've got to make good. We've got to put it through."

"You certainly must make good. And it is up to us girls to help things along," said Sally Lou, briskly. "Isn't it, Marian? Yes, I'm going to call you Marian right away. It's such a saving of time compared to 'Miss Hallowell.' And the very first thing to-morrow morning we will drive over to Mrs. Chrisenberry's, and coax her into letting you boys start that lateral through her land."

Three startled faces turned to her. Three astounded voices rose.

"Coax her, indeed! On my word! When she drove Rod and me off the place this very morning!"

"Think you dare ask her to take down her barb-wire barricade and lay away her shot-gun? 'Not till doomsday!'"

"Sally Lou, are you daft? You've never laid eyes on Mrs. Chrisenberry. You don't know what you're tackling. We'll not put that lateral through till we've dragged the whole question through the courts. Don't waste your time in dreaming, child."

"I'm not going to dream. I'm going to act. You'll go with me, won't you, Marian? We'll take the babies and the buckboard. But, if you don't mind, we'll leave Mr. Finnegan at home. Finnegan's diplomacy is all right, only that it's a trifle demonstrative. Yes, you boys are welcome to shake your heads and look owlish. But wait and see!"

"She'll never try to face that ferocious old lady," said Rod, on the way home.

"Of course not. She's just making believe," rejoined Marian.

Little did they know Sally Lou! Marian had just finished her breakfast the next morning when the yellow buckboard, drawn by a solemn, scraggy horse, drove up to Mrs. Gates's door. On the front seat, rosy as her scarlet gown and cloak, sat Sally Lou. From the back seat beamed Mammy Easter, in her gayest bandanna, with Edward Burford, Junior, dimpled and irresistible, beside her, and Thomas Tucker bouncing and crowing in her arms.

"Climb right in, Miss Northerner! Good-by, poor Finnegan! This time we're going to try the persuasive powers of two babies as compared to those of one collie. Here we go!"

"Are we really going to Mrs. Chrisenberry's? Are you actually planning to ask her for the right of way?" queried Marian.

Sally Lou chuckled. Her round face was guileless and bland.

"Certainly not. I am going to Mrs. Chrisenberry's to buy some goose-grease."

"To buy some goose-grease! Horrors! What is goose-grease, pray?"

"Goose-grease is goose-grease. Didn't you ever have the croup when you were young, Miss Northerner? And didn't they roll you in warm blankets, and then bandage your poor little throat with goose-grease and camphor and red pepper?"

"An' a baked onion for your supper," added Mammy Easter. "An' a big saucer of butterscotch, sizzlin'-hot. Dey ain't no croup what kin stand before dat!"

"Mercy, I should hope not. I never heard of anything so dreadful. You aren't going to give goose-grease to your own babies, I hope?"

Sally Lou surveyed her uproarious sons, and allowed herself a brief giggle.

"They've never had a sign of croup so far, I'm thankful to say. But one ought to be prepared. And Mrs. Chrisenberry has the finest poultry-yard in the country-side. We'll enjoy seeing that, too. Don't look so dubersome. Wait and see!"

Mrs. Chrisenberry was working in her vegetable garden as they drove up. Her queer little face was bound in a huge many-colored "nuby," her short skirts were kilted over high rubber boots. She leaned on her spade and gave the girls a nod that, as Marian told Rod later, was like a twelve-pound shot squarely across the enemy's bows.

Sally Lou merely beamed upon her.

"Wet weather for putting in your garden, isn't it?" she cried, gayly. "I'm Mrs. Burford, Mrs. Chrisenberry. My husband is an engineer on the Breckenridge contract."

"H'm!" Mrs. Chrisenberry glared. Sally Lou chattered gayly on.

"I'm staying down at the canal with these two youngsters, and I want to buy some of your fine goose-grease. They've never had croup in all their born days, but it's such a cold, wet spring that it is well to be prepared for anything."

"Goose-grease!" Mrs. Chrisenberry looked at her keenly. "For those babies? Highty-tighty! Goose-grease is well enough, but hot mutton taller is better yet. I've raised two just as fine boys as them, so I know. Mutton taller an' camphire, that's sovereign."

She put down her spade and picked her way to the buckboard. Edward Junior hailed her with a shriek of welcome. Thomas Tucker floundered wildly in Mammy's grasp and clutched Mrs. Chrisenberry around the neck with a strangling squeeze.

Marian gasped. For Mrs. Chrisenberry, grim, stern little nut-cracker lady, had lifted Thomas to her stooped little shoulder and was gathering Edward Junior into a lean strong little arm. Both babies crowed with satisfaction. Thomas jerked off the tasselled nuby and showered rose-leaf kisses from Mrs. Chrisenberry's tight knob of gray hair to the tip of her dour little chin. Edward pounded her gleefully with fists and feet.

"They'll strangle her," Marian whispered, aghast.

"Pooh, she doesn't mind," Sally Lou whispered back. "You mustn't let them pull you to pieces, Mrs. Chrisenberry. They're as strong as little bear cubs."

"Guess I know that." Mrs. Chrisenberry shook Edward's fat grip loose from her tatting collar. "They're the living images of my own boys, thirty years ago. I hope your children bring you as good luck as mine have brought me. They've grown up as fine men as you'd find in a day's journey. Let me take 'em to see the hen yard. They'll like to play with the little chickens, I know."

Edward and Thomas Tucker were charmed with the hen yard. They fell upon a brood of tiny yellow balls with cries of ecstasy. Only the irate pecks and squawks of the outraged hen mother prevented them from hugging the fuzzy peepers to a loving death.

"They're a pretty lively team," remarked Mrs. Chrisenberry. "Let's take 'em into the house, and I'll give them some cookies and milk. I don't know much about new-fangled ways of feeding children, but I do know that my cookies never hurt anybody yet."

She led them through her shining kitchen into a big, bright sitting-room. Again Marian halted to stare. This was not the customary chill and dreary farm-house "parlor." Instead, she saw a wide, fire-lit living-room, filled with flowering plants, home-like with its books and pictures; and at the arched bay-window a beautiful upright piano.

Mrs. Chrisenberry followed her glance.

"Land, I don't ever touch it," she said, with a dry little nut-cracker chuckle. "My oldest boy he gave it to me, for he knows I'm that hungry for music, and whenever my daughter-in-law comes to visit she plays for me by the hour, and it's something grand. And now and then a neighbor will pick out a tune for me. My, don't I wish I could keep it goin' all the time! You girls don't play, I suppose?"

Sally Lou's eyes met Marian's with a quick question. Marian's cheeks grew hot.

"I – I play a little. But I'm sure that Mrs. Burford – "

"Mrs. Burford will play some other time," interrupted Sally Lou, hastily. "Go on, that's a good girl!"

Now, it bored Marian dismally to play for strangers. She refused so habitually that few of her friends knew what a delightful pianist she really was. But dimly she realized that Sally Lou's eyes were flashing with anxious command. She opened the piano.

She ran through the airs from the "Tales from Hoffmann," then played a romping folk-dance, and, at last, the lovely magic of the "Spring Song."

Mrs. Chrisenberry hardly breathed. She sat rigidly in her chair, her knotted little hands shut tight, her beady eyes unwinking.

"My, but that goes to the place," she sighed, as the last airy harmony died away. "Now I'll bring your cookies and milk, you lambs, and then you'd better be starting home. It looks like rain."

Marian and Sally Lou fell behind in the procession to the carriage. Edward Junior toddled down the board walk, clinging to his hostess's skirt. Thomas Tucker laughed and gurgled in her arms. Mrs. Chrisenberry put Thomas on Mammy's lap, then picked up Edward, who, loath to depart, squeezed her neck with warm, crumby little hands and snuggled his fat cheek to her own. Mrs. Chrisenberry looked down at him. Her grim little nut-cracker face quivered oddly. A dim pink warmed her brown, withered cheek.