bread-knife from the pantry shelf, and with Allee in tow, stole
down to her garden plot.

"What are you going to do?" whispered the blue-eyed tot, as if still
fearful that she might be overheard at the house.

"Try one of my melons and see if it isn't ripe. This feller will do, I
guess. It is big, but not too big." She plunged the shining blade deep
into the green rind, and as the two halves fell apart, disclosing the
bright red heart thickly dotted with black and white seeds, she cried
triumphantly, "There, I knew I was right! Just taste it, Allee. Ain't it
sweet and nice? Let's lug it down to the hedge and eat it up."

"That's a piggy," answered the smaller girl, smacking her lips over the
delicious morsel.

"We can 'ford to be pigs this once, I guess," Peace retorted. "If we
take it up to the house they will want to know why we cut it, and we'll
have to tell them about Mike and the Fair. You don't want them to know
that, do you?"

"No, but we are too little to eat it all ourselves."

"Half a melon each ain't much. Why, Len Abbott must have eaten two whole
ones at the church sociable the other night. Can you carry your half?"

"Yes," panted the younger lass, bravely tugging at her heavy load.

So, with much puffing, and many stops for breath, they dragged the
fruit through the cornfield to the creek road, scrambled in behind the
dense brush and blackberry vines, and began to dispose of the sweet,
juicy center.

"Let's eat one-half all up 'fore we begin the other," proposed Allee,
who seemed to have some doubts as to the capacity of her stomach.

"All right," Peace agreed. "The melon _does_ look pretty big, and maybe
we can't hold it all at one sitting. I'll push the other half under the
bushes and cover my handkerchief over it to keep off the flies. What a
lot of seed this one has! Let's save some for planting next year.
S'posing each of these seeds was a ticket to the State Fairgrounds, we
could all of us go every day and invite everyone else in town, pretty
near. Hush! There's a team coming up the road. Let's peek and see if
it's anyone we know."

She drew aside the branches as she spoke, and two inquisitive,
fruit-stained faces peered out of the opening just as a two-seated
carryall drew up by the roadside, and a woman's voice said imperatively,
"There is a cluster, Henry,--lovely berries. I thought they were all
gone by this time."

Henry leaped over the wheel to the ground, gathered a handful of
du