otor, at thirty miles an
hour."

Betty had absent-mindedly picked a daisy from the tall grass in which
she was sitting, and was pulling off its petals, reciting the little
verse about:

"Rich man,
Poor man,
Beggar man,
Thief."

"Oh, dear! It's thief!" she cried, making up a wry face. "I'd rather
have any one than that!"

"Try the other verses," suggested Barbara, entering into the fun.

"What others?" asked Betty in much surprise. "I didn't know there were
any more."

"Dear me, yes," Mrs. Pitt broke in. "I used to know several of them
myself,--the one about the house:

'Big house,
Little house,
Pig-stye,
Barn,'

and about the conveyances:

'Coach,
Carriage,
Spring-cart,
Wheelbarrow.'

Wasn't there one more, Barbara? Oh, yes, about the dress materials:

'Silk,
Satin,
Muslin,
Rags.'"

"Well, well!" exclaimed Betty. "I never heard those. They must be just
English."

"Perhaps so. At any rate, when I was a little girl, I used to say
them, and believe in them, too. I lived here in Warwickshire, in my
childhood, you know; my father was rector of a tiny village not far
from Coventry. There are ever so many queer old rhymes, verses, and
customs still common among Warwickshire children."

"Tell Betty about some of them, Mother," Barbara urged. "I'm sure that
she'd like to hear, and we don't need to start on just yet."

Mrs. Pitt leaned thoughtfully against the lowered bars, at the
entrance to a field. "I'll have to think about it," she said; but she
soon added, "There was the 'Wishing Tree.' I remember that."

"What was it?" the two girls eagerly questioned. John and Philip,
privately considering this talk "silly stuff," had retired to the
farther side of a hay-rick, where they were whittling industriously.

"The 'Wishing Tree' was a large elm that stood in the park of a
neighboring nobleman's estate. To all the girls of the village, it was
a favorite spot, and we used to steal through the hedge and very
cautiously approach the tree. If the cross old gardener happened to
see us he'd come limping in our direction as fast as his lame legs
could carry him, calling out angrily that if we did not 'shog off
right away, he'd set his ten commandments in our faces.' That's an odd
expression, isn't it? It's very, very old,--so old that Shakespeare
was familiar with it and used it in one of his plays--'King Henry VI,'
I think. T