washing himself with one hand, while around the wrist of the other a
grimy handkerchief was bound. "Why didn't you say you were hurt?" he
said, coming over to Old Tilly's side. "What is it, anyway?"

"Oh, it's nothing," said Old Tilly, with an impatient nod of his head.
"Maybe it's where the lightning ran down," he said, with a laugh.

"Lightning!--not much! Come, out with it. What is it?"

"Oh, it's just a tear on an old nail. One of those steers got a little
ugly, and I jumped back too suddenly. It's nothing."

"We'll have to take your word for it," said Kent. But he very soberly
turned to the lunch baskets. It was just as they had packed up
everything neatly and were mounting their wheels to ride away, that a
wagon came rumbling down the grassy road and turned in to the farmyard.
A young man with a limp felt hat was on the seat with a woman wearing a
brown straw hat, while a tiny girl in a pink sunbonnet was nestled down
between them.

"Halloo!" said the man, as he saw the boys. "Just leavin'?"

"Yes, sir," said Old Tilly, respectfully. "We took the liberty of
sleeping in your barn last night. You see the storm kept us there all
night."

"Well, the storm kept us, too," said the young farmer, reaching for the
little child and setting her down by the pump, and then helping the
woman to alight.

The young woman gave a relieved look around, first at the barn and then
at the house, and said delightedly:

"Oh, Jim, how good it does seem to see everything safe! I can't believe
my eyes hardly." And she added, turning to the boys with a slightly
embarrassed laugh, "I never was very good to stay away from home nights,
and we didn't mean to stay last night, but the rain kept us. It just
seemed to me that with every clap of thunder we'd find everything burned
to ashes, and the whole place gone."

Tears came into her eyes, as she turned and gave her hand to the little
child. "Well, I'm going in to get breakfast," she said, a glad,
tremulous light showing across her face. "You better bring these boys in
to breakfast, Jim. If they've just slept in the barn they must be
hungry." Then turning back again with a heartier laugh, "I feel that
glad to see everything, even to the chickens, just as we left them, that
I wouldn't object to asking the President of the United States to
breakfast. You ain't from around here, are you?" she asked, looking at
the boys. "I thought not. And you're hungry, I'll wager," she