d Crackit, for two farms,"
declared the ex-boarding house keeper, with asperity.

"I hope you told these people about my hot water, Mrs. Atterson,"
croaked Mr. Peebles, from the step, where he stood muffled in a shawl
because of the raw morning air.

"If I didn't you can tell 'em yourself," returned she, with
satisfaction.

And so it went--the good-byes of these unappreciative boarders selfish
to the last! Mother Atterson sighed--a long, happy, and satisfying
sigh--when the lumbering wagon turned the first corner.

"Thanks be!" she murmured. "I sha'n't care if they don't have a driblet
of gravy at supper tonight."

Then she shook herself and stared straight ahead. On the very next
corner--she had insisted that none of the other people at the house
should observe their flitting--stood two figures, both forlorn.

Old Lem Camp, with a lean suit-case at his feet, and Sister with a
bulging carpetbag which she had brought with her months before from the
charity institution, and into which she had stuffed everything she owned
in the world.

Their faces brightened perceptibly when they beheld Mrs. Atterson
perched high beside the driver on the load of furniture and bedding. The
driver drew in his span of big horses and the wheels grated against the
curb.

"You climb right in behind, Mr. Camp," said the good lady. "There's room
for you up under the canvas top--and I had him spread a mattress so't
you can take it easy all the way, if you like.

"Sister, you scramble up here and sit in betwixt me and this man. And do
look out--you're spillin' things out o' that bag like it was a Christmas
cornucopia. Come on, now! Toss it behind us, onto them other things.
There! we'll go on--and no more stops, I hope, till we reach the farm."

But that couldn't be. It was a long drive, and the man was good to his
team. He rested them at the top of every hill, and sometimes at the
bottom. They had to stop two hours for dinner and to "breathe 'em," as
the man said.

At that time Mother Atterson produced a goodsized market basket--her
familiar companion when she had hunted bargains in the city--and it was
filled with sandwiches, and pickles, and crackers, and cookies, and
a whole boiled fowl (fowl were cheaper and more satisfying than the
scrawny chickens then in market) and hard-boiled eggs, and cheese, with
numbers of other less important eatables tucked into corners of the
basket to "wedge" the larger packages of food.

The four p