gay garden of flowers. Even now I could
detect the yellow of daffodils and the martial--at least it used to be
martial--scarlet of tulips. The little place seemed to drowse here in
the noontide, dreaming of its lost home and other little farms that once
companioned it.

To my pleased surprise this unbelievable little farm proved to be our
next stopping place. At its gate Ma Pettengill dismounted, eased the
cinch of her saddle and tied her horse to the hitching rack. I did
likewise by the one-time cinch binder.

"Now," I wondered, "what devastating bomb shall we hurl into this
flower-spiced Arcady? What woe will she put upon its unsuspecting
dwellers, even as she has ruined four other homes this day? This should
be something really choice." But I said no word and followed where the
avenger stalked.

We unlatched the white gate and went up a gravelled walk between the
rows of daffodils and tulips and hyacinths. We did not ascend the
spotless front porch to assault its innocent white door, but turned aside
on a narrow-gauge branch of the gravelled pathway and came to a side
porch, shaded by maples. And here, in strict conformity to the soundest
behests of tradition, sat two entirely genuine Arcadians in wooden
rocking-chairs. The male was a smiling old thing with winter-apple
cheeks and white hair, and the female was a smiling old thing with
winter-apple cheeks and white hair; both had bright eyes of doll blue,
and both wore, among other neat things, loose and lovely carpet slippers
and white stockings.

And, of course, the male was named Uncle Henry and the other one was
named Aunt Mollie, for I was now presented to them. They shyly greeted
me as one returned to them after many years in which they had given me
up. And again I wondered what particular iniquity we had come here to do.

Then Ma Pettengill eased my worry. She said in a few simple but affecting
words, that we had stopped in for a bite to eat. No self-torturing
stylist could have put the thing better. And results were sudden. Uncle
Henry, the male one, went to take our horses round to the barn, and the
other one said they had et an hour ago; but give her ten minutes and
she'd have a couple of them young pullets skinned and on the fire.

Ma Pettengill said, with very questionable taste, I thought: "Oh, no;
nothing like that!"--because we didn't want to make the least bit of
trouble. The woman is dense at times. What else had we come there
for? But Aunt Mo