ich Aunt Kittredge was accustomed
to overwhelm Clorinda when she burned the pies or wore her best bonnet
to evening meeting. Minty's face grew so long that it looked like the
reflection of a face in a spoon, and the tears came into her eyes. It
must be a hard world, since Jason found it so. He was much
stouter-hearted than she; his round, snub-nosed, freckled face was
generally as cheerful as the sunshine. Jason had his troubles--Minty
well knew what they were--but he bore them manfully. He didn't like to
have Clorinda use his hens' eggs when he was saving them to sell, and
perhaps it was even more trying to be at school when the eggs man
came around, and have Aunt Kittredge sell his eggs and put the money
into her pocket. Jason wished to go into business for himself, and he
had a high opinion of the poultry business for a beginning. Cyrus,
their "hired man," had once lived with a man at North Edom who made
fabulous sums by raising poultry. But Aunt Kittredge's peculiar views
of the rights of boys interfered with his accumulation of the
necessary capital. All these troubles Jason bore bravely. It must be
some great misfortune that caused him to look so utterly despairing,
and to accuse her of such dreadful things, thought poor Minty.

Jason took pity on her woful face. "P'raps you're not so much to
blame, Mint. You don't know," he said, in a somewhat softened tone.
"It's Aunt Kittredge."

Minty heaved a long, long sigh. It generally _was_ Aunt Kittredge.

"She's told Cyrus to kill the--the white turkey!" continued Jason,
with almost a break in his voice.

"To kill Priscilla!" gasped Minty. "She couldn't--she wouldn't! Oh,
Jason, Cyrus won't do it, will he?"

"Hasn't he got to if she says so?" demanded Jason grimly.

"But Priscilla is yours," said Minty stoutly.

"She says she only let me call her mine. Just as if I didn't save her
out of that weak brood when all the rest were killed by the
thunderstorm! And brought her up in cotton behind the kitchen stove,
no matter how much Clorinda scolded! And found her nest with
thirty-one eggs in it in the old pine stump! And she knows me and
follows me round."

"I shouldn't think Aunt Kittredge would want to," said Minty
reflectively.

"She wants a big turkey, because the minister and his daughter are
coming to dinner, and she doesn't want to have one of the young ones
killed, because she is too stin--"

"I wouldn't care if I were you. After all, Priscilla is only a