dise of the chicken-coop, and
dragged out, howling. Willie, not desiring to leave "dear uncle's," was
forcibly retrieved by Dick from the roof of the barn.

Mr. Harold Vernon Perkins had silently disappeared in the night, but no
one feared foul play. "He'll be waitin' at the train, I reckon," said Mrs.
Dodd, "an' most likely composin' a poem on 'Departure' or else breathin'
into a tube to see if he's mad."

She had taken her dismissal very calmly after the first shock. "A woman
what's been married seven times, same as I be," she explained to Dorothy,
"gets used to bein' moved around from place to place. My sixth husband had
the movin' habit terrible. No sooner would we get settled nice an'
comfortable in a place, an' I got enough acquainted to borrow sugar an'
tea an' molasses from my new neighbours, than Thomas would decide to move,
an' more 'n likely, it'd be to some new town where there was a great
openin' in some new business that he'd never tried his hand at yet.

"My dear, I've been the wife of a undertaker, a livery-stable keeper, a
patent medicine man, a grocer, a butcher, a farmer, an' a justice of the
peace, all in one an' the same marriage. Seems 's if there wa'n't no
business Thomas couldn't feel to turn his hand to, an' he knowed how they
all ought to be run. If anybody was makin' a failure of anythin', Thomas
knowed just why it was failin' an' I must say he ought to know, too, for I
never see no more steady failer than Thomas.

"They say a rollin' stone never gets no moss on it, but it gets worn
terrible smooth, an' by the time I 'd moved to eight or ten different
towns an' got as many as 'leven houses all fixed up, the corners was all
broke off 'n me as well as off 'n the furniture. My third husband left me
well provided with furniture, but when I went to my seventh altar, I
didn't have nothin' left but a soap box an' half a red blanket, on account
of havin' moved around so much.

"I got so's I'd never unpack all the things in any one place, but keep 'em
in their dry-goods boxes an' barrels nice an' handy to go on again. When
the movin' fit come on Thomas, I was always in such light marchin' order
that I could go on a day's notice, an' that's the way we usually went. I
told him once it'd be easier an' cheaper to fit up a prairie schooner such
as they used to cross the plains in, an' then when we wanted to move, all
we'd have to do would be to put a dipper of water on the fire an' tell the
mules to get