ep."

They had been a long while in the close saloon, inhaling ether, and
this was the cause of their languor. As they entered the yard they met
Horace.

"O, dear," said Dotty, trying to look as sorry as she knew she ought
to feel, "that wheel--"

"What!" exclaimed Prudy.

There, under a syringa tree in the garden, stood the wheelbarrow. The
girls rubbed their eyes, and wondered if they were walking in their
sleep.

"That thing trundled itself in here about half an hour ago," said
Horace, gravely. "You may know I was surprised to look up, and see it
coming without hands, just rolling along like a velocipede."

Dotty eyed the runaway wheelbarrow stupidly. "I don't believe it,"
said she, flatly.

Horace laughed; and then the fog cleared away from Dotty's mind in a
minute.

"Why, girls," said he, "how long did you think I could wait to haul
off my weeds? You were gone two hours. I watched you on your parade,
and followed at a respectful distance."

"There, Horace Clifford!"

"In order not to disturb the procession. Then, when I saw you going
into the saloon, I went up and claimed my wheelbarrow. Didn't want it
any longer--did you?"

"No, and never want it again," said Prudy.

"By the way, here's a conundrum for you, girls, Why's a wheelbarrow
like a potato?"

"I shouldn't think it was like it at all," answered Dotty. "Where did
you read that?"

"Didn't read it anywhere. I've given up books since I undertook
gardening. Never was much of a bookworm. Make a very respectable
_earth-worm_; ask aunt Louise if I don't."

The little girls entered the house, too tired and sleepy to make any
reply.

CHAPTER X.

WAKING.

Flyaway was very much sleepier than either of her cousins, and really
did not know where she was, or what she was doing. Lonnie Adams, a boy
of Horace's age, tried to interest her. He made believe the old cat
was a sheep, killed her with an iron spoon, and hung her up by the
hind legs for mutton, all which Pussy bore like a lamb, for she had
been killed a great many times, and was used to it. But it did not
please Flyaway; neither did aunt Martha's collection of shells and
pictures call forth a single smile. There was a beautiful clock in
the parlor, and the pendulum was in the form of a little boy swinging;
but Flyaway would not have cared if it had been a gallows, and the boy
hanging there dead.

Uncle John took her on his knee, asked her what her name was, where
she lived, and