hem. "This is Sarah Willis--I want
to have her wait here while I'm over at the shop."

"She'll be all right," answered Mrs. King kindly. "She can sit here
and rest; it's nice and shady."

Mrs. King was shelling peas, and Sarah sat down in the cretonne-covered
rocking chair next to her. There was one other person on the porch--a
stout gentleman, stretched out in an arm chair, sound asleep. His face
was covered with a white silk handkerchief which partially hid his
round, bald head.

"Do you like the country?" asked Mrs. King, glancing toward her small
visitor while her clever, quick fingers sent a continuous shower of
peas rattling into the pan in her lap.

"Oh, yes, I like it," nodded Sarah with enthusiasm. "I like it lots
better than Eastshore and going to school. I wouldn't mind living in
the country for always."

"But you'd have to go to school if you lived in the country," said Mrs.
King mildly. "You can't get away from lesson-books, no matter where
you go."

"Not in Africa?" suggested Sarah who never disdained an argument.

"I've never been in Africa," Mrs. King replied, "so I can't tell you
positively. But my guess is all the children who aren't natives, have
to be educated."

"What do the children who are natives do?" asked Sarah.

Mrs. King considered.

"I imagine they go around without any clothes on and the tigers eat
them," she decided, recalling to mind several doleful pictures she had
seen in an old geography.

Sarah shivered, not in sympathy with the scantily clad children, but
because of the tigers mentioned.

"I wouldn't want to be eaten by a tiger," she declared, rocking
violently back and forth, "but I would love to have a baby tiger to
play with me."

"Look out you don't go over backward," warned the landlady. "Don't you
know a baby tiger would grow up to be a fierce, wild animal and
probably end up by eating you?" she added.

"He wouldn't eat me, if I brought him up tame," said Sarah. "Baby
tigers are like kittens--I saw some pictures of them once. I'd keep
mine to guard my farm and I'll bet no robbers would come if they knew a
live tiger was roaming around."

"No, robbers wouldn't come, or your friends, either," Mrs. King said
grimly. "And the butcher would be afraid to turn up, for fear the
tiger might think he was the meat ordered for his dinner. You and your
tiger would get lonely after a while."

"I have a tiger cat home," volunteered Sarah. "But she isn't ver