ittredge, but she swallowed a lump in her throat and said firmly that
she would try to have sense enough.

As they passed the blacksmith's shop, Liphlet, Uncle Piper's man,
called out to them: "Mebbe I shan't have time to go up to your house.
The blacksmith is sick, so I had to come over here to get the mare
shod, and I wish you'd tell your aunt that Sabriny says 'twan't no
turkey's wing that she sent her: 'twas some kind of a sea-bird's wing,
and it come off of somebody's bunnit, and she's a-goin' to fetch it
back!"

Minty and Jason answered not a word, but as they went on they looked
at each other despairingly.

"We should have been found out anyway," said Minty.

Her pitifully white face seemed to touch Jason and arouse a spark of
manly courage in his bosom.

"I'll stand by you, Mint, feather and all. You can't help being a
girl," he said magnanimously. "And I won't run away to be a cowboy
like Hiram Trickey."

Minty gave him a little grateful glance, but she could not speak. It
did not seem so dreadful now about Hiram Trickey. She wished that a
girl could run away to be a cowboy.

As they slowly and dejectedly drew near the house, they saw a horse
and a farm wagon at the door, and through the window they discovered
that Uncle and Aunt Kittredge, Clorinda, and Cyrus were all in the
kitchen. There was a visitor. Here was at least a slight reprieve.
They went around through the woodshed; it seemed advisable to approach
Aunt Kittredge with caution, even in the presence of a visitor.

"Well, I must say I'm consid'able disappointed," the visitor was
saying, as they softly opened the door. He was a bluff, burly man, who
sat with his tall whip between his knees. "I ought to 'a' stopped when
I see her out there top of the stone wall the last time I come by--the
handsomest turkey cretur I ever did see, and I've been in the poultry
business this twenty years. I knew in a minute she belonged to that
breed that old Mis' Joskins had; she fetched 'em from York State. She
moved away before I knew it, and carried 'em all with her."

"I bought some eggs of her, and 'most all of 'em hatched, but that
white turkey was the only one that lived," said Aunt Kittredge. "I
declare if I'd known she was anything more'n common, and worthy of
havin' her picture in a book--"

"You'd ought to have known it, Maria!" said Uncle Kittredge testily.
"I wa'n't for havin' her killed, and you'd ought to have heard to me!"

"I was calc'latin'