e
going out into the field together, after Gram had been touching him up,
'Addison,' said he, 'your grandmother was a Pepperill. They were nice
folks; but they had spicy tempers, some of them. Old Sir William
Pepperill, that led our people down to Louisburg, was her
great-great-uncle. They were good old New England stock, but none of
them would ever bear a bit of crowding; and I always take that into
account.'"

Halstead came out and then went to search for a tool which they termed
a "nigger hoe," a hoe with a narrow blade, such as, in the old
plantation days of the South, the negroes are said to have used for
turning over the turf of new fields.

Theodora came to the door of the wagon-house. "Going with us after
poke?" Addison called out to her.

"I wish we could," she replied; "but we have lots to do in the house.
Gram says that, as we were out all the forenoon, we must stay indoors
the rest of the day."

Ellen, too, was espied gazing regretfully after us, as we set off with
the baskets and tools. Halse had a pocketful of doughnuts (which he
always called duffnuts). He had made a raid on the pantry, he said, and
enlivened the way by topping off his dinner with them.

We went out through the fields to the southwest of the farm buildings,
then crossed a lot called the calf pasture, and then a swale, descending
through woods and bushes into the valley of the west brook.

"This is the meadow-brook," said Addison. "But Titcomb's meadow is a
mile below here. We will follow down the brook till we come to it.

"That's poke," he continued, pointing to a thick, rank, green plant,
with great curved leaves, now about a foot in height and growing near
the bank of the brook. Halstead gave one of the plants a crushing stroke
with his hoe, and I noticed that it gave off a very unpleasant odor.

"It is poison," Addison remarked. "It is the plant that botanists call
_veratrum viride_, I believe. But the common name is Indian poke."

"O Ad knows everything; his head is stuffed with long words!" exclaimed
Halse, derisively. "It'll bust one of these days. I don't dare to get
very near him on that account."

"No danger that yours will ever 'bust' on account of what's inside it,"
retorted Addison, laughing.

But Halstead, although he had begun the joking, did not appear to take
this shot back in good part. He turned aside and began to cut a
witch-hazel rod.

"Now quit that, Halse," exclaimed Addison. "Wait till we get the pok