with you if
he did know. Those Bucknors of Buck Hill are a proud-stomached lot.
They've been dusting me on the pike ever since I was a little
girl--dusting me and never even seeing me."

"Did you ever speak to them?"

"Of course not. I was never one to put myself forward."

"Well, why should they speak to you any more than you speak to them?
Aren't you as good as they are? Surely, and a great deal prettier. You
are as much prettier than Mrs. Bucknor as a day lily is prettier than
a cabbage rose," declared Judith.

"Oh, how you do talk, Judy! Of course, when I say they didn't ever
speak I mean they never went out of their way to speak. When we had
deaths over here they kind of acted neighborly like and sent word to
call on them if we needed anything, but we never did, as my mother and
I always saved mourning from time to time. I guess they'd have been a
little more back-and-forth friendly if it hadn't have been for your
Grandfather Buck. He was kind of difficult like when he was drinking
and that was most times. He was either drinking or getting over drunks
as a general thing. Then he was mighty lazy and shiftless."

"Poor Mumsy! You've had a right hard time with us Bucks. Grandfather
Buck was so lazy he worried you to death and I'm so energetic I know I
annoy you terribly. But all this talking isn't selling toilet articles
to house parties. By the way, I got a 'phone message from my motormen.
They want six suppers this evening. That means I must run into
Ryeville and buy some more baskets and lay in provisions of all kinds.
I wish I'd been triplets, or at least twins. I could accomplish so
much more."

"Land sakes, Judy! Surely you do enough as it is. All six dinners at
once?"

"Oh no! Two on the six, two on the six-thirty and two for the seven.
I'm afraid I'll wear the path into a ditch. I'm glad to see the beets
are big enough to eat and before you know it we'll have some snap
beans and peas. I'm going to get a little darkey to work the garden,
because I simply can't give the time for it. Besides, my time is
really too valuable for digging just now. Did I tell you I had taken
the contract to develop all the amateur photographic films for Baker &
Bowles? I saw them about it the other day. They have an awful time
getting it done right and they knew I had done a lot of that work for
school, so they asked me to try. Of course I couldn't let such a
chance slip and since I can do it at night I accepted. It will ta