e many people as well as the governments interested in keeping the
soldiers well fed! Maybe it's a crime these days for the old and for
babies to require food! Yet they do need it. So if you don't mind,
Polly, I want the people in our neighborhood to feel that they can come
to our farm for milk and eggs, or whatever we have to give them. I left
word with the manager of my farm near Boston to ship livestock to me in
France whenever the chance offers. I am hoping after a little, when
these old people get back on their farms that we may be able to give
each family sufficient stock to keep them going until their young men
and women return home. But remember, I don't wish to interfere with what
you children are doing, nursing the sick and opening schools and
starting play centers. Heaven only knows what you are not undertaking!
As I said before, I'll just look after my farm."

Here Miss Patricia attempted to return to her usual belligerent manner,
but found it difficult because Mrs. Burton had placed her arm about her.
Try as Aunt Patricia might to conceal her adoration of Mrs. Burton, it
was nearly always an impossible feat.

Besides Mrs. Burton was exclaiming with a little catch in her voice:

"You dear, splendid, old Irish gentlewoman! Is there anybody in the
world in the least like you? Of course you were right when you announced
that I never would think of the really practical things we should
require for our work over here. But, although I spent as much money as I
could possibly afford, I have realized every day since our arrival, that
if I had expended every cent I ever hope to possess, it would have
amounted to nothing. Yet I never once thought of the shipping of stock
for the little farms in our neighborhood, Aunt Patricia. I am sure you
will make life more worth while for every man and woman in this part of
the French country before many months."

Instead of appearing gratified by these compliments, Miss Patricia was
heard to murmur something or other about Polly Burton's fashion of
exaggeration. Then, perhaps partly to conceal embarrassment, she began
tearing the slats from the side of one of her crates. Afterwards,
driving her travel-worn flock of chickens toward the chicken house,
which she herself had made ready, and shooing them with her black skirt,
Miss Patricia temporarily disappeared.

Through tears Mrs. Burton laughed at the picture.

Vera followed Miss Patricia, whom she had learned to like and admi