y. "Only a little hop-toad, Delia,
that wouldn't harm a baby, let alone a big girl nine years old, like you."

"She's a queer child," Mrs. Slater confided to the young ladies. "Not a
drop of anything will she drink but cold tea. It don't seem reasonable
to give it to her all day, and I won't do it, so she has to wait till
meals. She makes a face if I say milk, and the water tastes slippery,
she says, and salty-like. She won't touch it. I tell her it's good
well-water, but she just shakes her head. She's stubborn 's a bronze
mule, that child. Just mopes around. 'S morning she asked me when did
the parades go by. I told her there wa'n't any, but the circus, an' that
had been already. I tried to cheer her up, sort of, with that Fresh-Air
picnic of yours to-morrow, Miss Forsythe, an s'she, 'Oh, the Dago
picnic,' s'she, 'will they have Tong's band?'"

"She don't seem to take any int'rest in th' farm, like those Fresh-Air
children, either. I showed her the hens an' the eggs, an' she said it
was a lie about the hens layin' 'em. 'What d' you take me for?' s'she.
The idea! Then Henry milked the cow, to show her--she wouldn't believe
that, either--and with the milk streamin' down before her, what do you
s'pose she said? 'You put it in!' s'she. I never should a' believed
that, Miss Forsythe, if I hadn't heard it."

"Oh, she'll get over it; just wait a few days. Good-bye, Ardelia. Eat
a good supper."

But this Ardelia did not do. Mr. Slater ate in voracious silence.
William never spoke, and Mrs. Slater filled their plates without
comment. Ardelia had never in her life eaten in silence. Through the
open door the buzz of the katydids was beginning tentatively. In the
intervals of William's gulps a faint bass note warned them from the
swamp.

"Better gorrround! Better gorrround!"

Ardelia's nerves strained and snapped. Her eyes grew wild.

"Fer Gawd's sake, talk!" she cried, sharply. "Are youse dumbies?"

* * * * *

The morning dawned fresh and fair; the homely barnyard noises brought a
smile to Miss Forsythe's sympathetic face, as she waited for Ardelia to
join her in a drive to the station. But Ardelia did not smile.

At the station Miss Forsythe shook her limp little hand.

"Good-bye, dear. I'll bring the other little children back with me.
You'll enjoy that. Good-bye."

"I'm comin', too," said Ardelia.

"Why--no, dear--you wait for us. You'd only turn around and come right
back, you k