ters' rockaway and the Rickabachs' spring-wagon. Even Miss
Agnes Spinner's bicycle had a fence panel all to itself, as though it
were very skittish and likely to kick and set the whole road in
commotion. To my own unimportant self I never attributed this assembly
of all the great folk of the valley. There was some more potent
reason. As I pondered, hunting for it, we came to the lane. Until I
found that reason it seemed wise for me to turn there, and under the
cover of the orchard to reach the hiding of the barn, where I could
leave Penelope while I scouted and had a peep through the keyhole of
the back door. But Nathan saved me from such an ignominious return.
He kept right on. My efforts to stop him only made him trot, and in a
moment we were at the gate. He seemed to like the house and the shade
of the oaks, for he halted, let himself down on three legs complacently
and began to switch at flies. And I, with nothing left to do, was
measuring the distance to a safe landing when I heard a cry from the
door.

"Davy! Davy!" I saw my mother running down the path with her arms
outstretched, and after her came a great company.

"Davy--Davy, dear--we thought you had been drowned!" she cried.

Here, then, was the reason for this great gathering. What a commotion
for so small a reason--as though a boy's chief end were to tumble into
the water, as though he never were to be trusted out of his mother's
sight? I dropped the reins; my eyes and my mouth opened wide with
astonishment.

"Your father's dragging the mill-dam for you this very minute." She
was at the gate. "Where--where have you been?"

She did not let me answer. She lifted her hands and caught me in her
embrace, and Penelope's arms were clutching me about the neck as she
was swung with me from Nathan's back.

My mother was crying, from gladness I took it, for there certainly was
joy in her eyes when she held me off and looked down at me. Then came
astonishment, and she lowered her spectacles from the top of her head
to make sure that she saw aright.

"But who--who is this?" she said.

For answer I took Penelope's hand and faced the whole company; faced
Mr. Pound and the squire, old Mr. Smiley and Miss Spinner, Mrs. Pound,
and a score of others of the great folk of the valley. I faced them
with defiance in my eyes, for were not they the authors of the
Professor's troubles and was I not his only friend?

"It's Penelope Blight," I said, "and I