toe-tips and the opening blossoms half
hiding her face. Jack insisted on having them laid across his knee She
was not a fairy out of a play, as he knew by her conversation.

"Mister, did you yell when you was hit?" she asked.

Jack considered thoughtfully. It would not do to be vagarious under such
a shrewd examination; he must be exact.

"No, I don't think I did. I was too busy."

"I'll bet you wanted to, if you hadn't been so busy. Did it hurt much?"

"Not so very much."

"Maybe that was why you didn't yell. Mother says that all you can see is
a little black spot--except you can't see it for the bandages. Is that
the way yours is?"

"I believe so. In fact, I'll tell you a secret: That's the fashion
in wounds."

"Mother will be glad to know she's right. She sets a lot by her opinion,
does mother. Say, do you like plums?"

Jack already had a peck of plums, but another peck would not add much to
the redundancy as far as he was concerned.

"I'll bring you some. We've got the biggest plums in Little Rivers--oh,
so big! Bigger'n Mr. Ewold's! I'll bring some right away." She paused,
however, in the doorway. "Don't you tell anybody I said they were
bigger'n Mr. Ewold's," she went on. "It might hurt his feelings. He's
what they call the o-rig-i-nal set-tler, and we always agree that he
grows the biggest of everything, because--why, because he's got such a
big laugh and such a big smile. Mother says sour-faced people oughtn't to
have a face any bigger'n a crab apple; but Mr. Ewold's face couldn't be
too big if it was as big as all outdoors! Good-by. I reckon you won't be
s'prised to hear that I'm the dreadful talker of our family."

"Wait!" Jack called. "You haven't told me your name."

"Belvedere Smith. Father says it ain't a name for living things. But
mother is dreadfully set in her ideas of names, and she doesn't like it
because people call me Belvy; but they just naturally will."

"Belvedere, did you ever hear of the three little blue mice"--Jack was
leaning toward her with an air of fascinating mystery--"that thought they
could hide in the white clover from the white cat that had two black
stripes on her back?"

There was a pellmell dash across the room and her face, with wide-open
eyes dancing in curiosity, was pressed close to his:

"Why did the cat have two black stripes? Why? why?"

"Just what I was going to tell," said the pacifier of desperadoes.

"They were off on a tremendous adventure, with a