ounted gophers. But there were so many and they
ran about so much that she could not keep track of them; so she gave it
up soon and began to think over all the things she would buy from the
thick catalogue with the money she would get when she had snared a great
number.

And she was still sitting there, watching the gophers covetously, when
she saw the eldest brother returning. He had a salmon-can full of
poisoned wheat in one hand, and when he reached the meadow he made a
circuit and left a pinch of grain at the mouths of a score of burrows,
where the greedy animals could find it and cram it into their
cheek-pouches, and then crawl into their holes to die. When he had
distributed all the grain, he threw the salmon-can away, wiped his
fingers on his overalls, and started for the watermelon patch.

The little girl had silently withdrawn into the corn-field at his
approach, but now she came out and, after satisfying herself that he was
out of sight, picked up the can and also made a circuit of the meadow.
Strangely enough, she stopped at the very burrows he had visited. When
she was done, she went to the boggy center, found a deep cow track that
was half full of water, and carefully emptied the can into it. Then she
took it back to where the eldest brother had thrown it, and, with a look
toward the watermelon patch, went home.

On his way back to the farm-house, the eldest brother paused in the
timothy to see if the gophers had eaten of the poisoned grain. He was
delighted to find, on going from hill to hill, that not a single kernel
was visible! He imparted the good news to the family at the
dinner-table, and it was received with rejoicing. The little girl alone
was silent. But, doubtless, she had not heard what he said, for she was
intent upon a huge piece of dried-prune cobbler.

That afternoon she went out to the barn to get some hair for a
slipping-noose. Kate, the raw-boned cultivator horse, standing idle in
her stall, turned her head and nickered when she heard the door creak
open, expecting a nibble of sugar-bread. But the little girl had nothing
for her. Instead, she rolled a dry-goods box into an adjoining stall,
climbed upon it, and, reaching over the rough board side, got hold of
Kate's long black tail.

The mare flattened her ears back, stamped crossly, and swayed her hind
quarters against the opposite partition. But the little girl only clung
the tighter and, unmindful in her security, chose and pulled