ra ending with
the Civil War. He never let a dollar escape him.

They came just at dusk. We boys were doing the chores. The girls were
getting supper. Theodora had resolved to try her hand at a batch of
"mug-bread" for the next day, and had set "Old Hannah" up for it.

The unexpected arrival upset us all a good deal, particularly Ellen and
Theodora, who had to bear the brunt of grandmother's absence, get tea,
see to the spare rooms and do everything else. And then there was Olin,
mildly grinning. His presence disturbed the girls worse than everything
else. But Aunt Nabbie smoothed away their anxieties, and helped to make
all comfortable.

We got through the evening better than had at first seemed likely, and
in the morning the girls rose at five and tried to hurry that
"mug-bread" along, with other things, so as to have some of it for
dinner, for they found that they were short of bread.

Ellen, I believe, thought that they had better not attempt the risky
experiment, but should start some hop-yeast bread.

Theodora, however, peeped into the old mug, saw encouraging eyes in it,
and resolved to go on. They mixed it up with the necessary warm water
and flour and set it carefully back for the second rising.

Perhaps they had a little hotter fire than usual, perhaps they had
hurried it a shade too much, or--well, you can "perhaps" anything you
like with milk-yeast bread. At all events, it took the wrong turn and
began to perfume the kitchen.

If they had not been hard pressed and a little flurried that morning,
the girls would probably have thrown it out. Instead, they took it down,
saw that it was rising a little and--hoping that it would yet pull
through--worked in more flour and soda, and hurried four loaves of it
into the oven to bake.

Then it was that the unleavened turpitude of that hostile microbe
displayed the full measure of its malignity. A horrible odor presently
filled the place. Stale eggs would have been Araby the Blest beside it.

The girls hastily shut the kitchen doors, but doors would not hold it
in. It captured the whole house. Aunt Nabbie, in the sitting-room,
perceived it and came rustling out to give motherly advice and
assistance.

And it chanced that while Theodora was confidentially explaining it to
her, the kitchen door leading to the front piazza opened, and in walked
Uncle Pascal, with Olin behind him. They had been out in the garden
looking at the fruit, and had come back to get Aun