ox
team driving up to the cabin and, scanning the prairies, she saw
others on the way, so merely stopped to cry, eagerly:

"They've come! The folks have come!" before she hastened in with the
butter and to see if she could in any way help Mercy dress for the
great occasion.

She was just in time, for the plump housewife was vainly struggling to
fasten the buttons of a new lilac calico gown which she had made:

"A teeny tiny mite too tight. I didn't know I was gettin' so fat, I
really didn't."

"Oh! it's all right, dear Mother Mercy. It looked just lovely that day
you tried it on. I'll help you. You're all trembling and warm. That's
the reason it bothers."

She was so deft and earnest in her efforts that Mercy submitted
without protest, and in this manner succeeded in "making herself fit
to be seen by folks" about the moment that they arrived to observe.
Then everything else was forgotten, amid the greetings and gayety
that followed. For out of what purported to be a task the whole
community was making a frolic.

While the men repaired to the golden fields to reap the grain the
women hurried to the smooth grassy place where the harvest-dinner was
to be enjoyed out-of-doors.

Most of the vehicles--which brought whole families, down to the babe
in long clothes--were drawn by oxen, though some of the pioneers owned
fine horses and had driven these, groomed with extraordinary care and
destined, later on, to be entered in the races which should conclude
the business and fun of the day.

Both horses and oxen were, for the present, led out to graze upon a
fine pasture and were supposed to be under the care, while there, of
the young people. These were, however, more deeply engaged in playing
games than in watching, and for once their stern parents ignored the
carelessness.

"Oh, such bright faces!" cried the Sun Maid to Mercy. "And yours is
the happiest of all, even though you did have such a terrible time to
get ready. See, they are fixing the tables out of the wagon boards,
and every woman has brought her own dishes. They're making fires, too,
some of the bigger boys. What for, Mother Mercy?"

"Oh! don't bother me now. It's to boil the coffee on, and to bake the
jonny-cakes. 'Journey-cakes,' they used to call them. Mis' Waldron,
she's mixin' some this minute. Step acrost to her table an' watch. A
girl a'most ten years old ought to learn all kinds of housekeepin'."

Kitty was nothing loath. It was, indeed, a tre