he stage was.
Our farm is away off from everywheres, but our school and meeting house
is at Temperance, and that's only two miles. Sitting up here with you
is most as good as climbing the meeting-house steeple. I know a boy
who's been up on our steeple. He said the people and cows looked like
flies. We haven't met any people yet, but I'm KIND of disappointed in
the cows;--they don't look so little as I hoped they would; still
(brightening) they don't look quite as big as if we were down side of
them, do they? Boys always do the nice splendid things, and girls can
only do the nasty dull ones that get left over. They can't climb so
high, or go so far, or stay out so late, or run so fast, or anything."

Mr. Cobb wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and gasped. He had a
feeling that he was being hurried from peak to peak of a mountain range
without time to take a good breath in between.

"I can't seem to locate your farm," he said, "though I've been to
Temperance and used to live up that way. What's your folks' name?"

"Randall. My mother's name is Aurelia Randall; our names are Hannah
Lucy Randall, Rebecca Rowena Randall, John Halifax Randall, Jenny Lind
Randall, Marquis Randall, Fanny Ellsler Randall, and Miranda Randall.
Mother named half of us and father the other half, but we didn't come
out even, so they both thought it would be nice to name Mira after aunt
Miranda in Riverboro; they hoped it might do some good, but it didn't,
and now we call her Mira. We are all named after somebody in
particular. Hannah is Hannah at the Window Binding Shoes, and I am
taken out of Ivanhoe; John Halifax was a gentleman in a book; Mark is
after his uncle Marquis de Lafayette that died a twin. (Twins very
often don't live to grow up, and triplets almost never--did you know
that, Mr. Cobb?) We don't call him Marquis, only Mark. Jenny is named
for a singer and Fanny for a beautiful dancer, but mother says they're
both misfits, for Jenny can't carry a tune and Fanny's kind of
stiff-legged. Mother would like to call them Jane and Frances and give
up their middle names, but she says it wouldn't be fair to father. She
says we must always stand up for father, because everything was against
him, and he wouldn't have died if he hadn't had such bad luck. I think
that's all there is to tell about us," she finished seriously.

"Land o' Liberty! I should think it was enough," ejaculated Mr. Cobb.
"There wa'n't many names left when your mother