ld him that every time he came to
town he was to report to him."

M'ri had sat motionless during the recital of this story. At its close
she did not speak.

"That wasn't much of a story. Let's go play," suggested Janey,
relieving the tension.

They were off like a flash. David heard his name faintly called.
M'ri's voice sounded far off, and as if there were tears in it, but he
lacked the courage to return.

CHAPTER VIII

Two important events calendared the next week. The school year ended
and Pennyroyal, the "hired help," who had been paying her annual visit
to her sister, came back to the farm. There are two kinds of
housekeepers, the "make-cleans" and the "keep-cleans." Pennyroyal was
a graduate of both classes. Her ruling passions in life were scrubbing
and "redding" up. On the day of her return, after making onslaught on
house and porches, she attacked the pump, and planned a sand-scouring
siege for the morrow on the barn. In appearance she was a true
exponent of soap and water, and always had the look of being freshly
laundered.

At first Pennyroyal looked with ill favor on the addition that had
been made to the household in her absence, but when David submitted to
the shampooing of his tousled mass of hair, and offered no protest
when she scrubbed his neck, she became reconciled to his presence.

On a "town day" David, carrying a huge bunch of pinks, paid his second
visit to the Judge.

"Did she tell you," asked the tall man, gazing very hard at the
landscape without the open window, "to give these flowers to some one
who needed them?"

There was a perilous little pause. Then there flashed from the boy to
the man a gaze of comprehension.

"She picked them for you," was the response, simply spoken.

The Judge carefully selected a blossom for his buttonhole, and then
proceeded to draw David out. Under the skillful, schooled questioning,
David grew communicative.

"She's always on the west porch after supper." He added naively:
"That's the time when Uncle Barnabas smokes on the east porch, Jud
goes off with the boys, and I play with Janey in the lane."

"Thank you, David," acknowledged the Judge gratefully. "You are quite
a bureau of information, and," in a consciously casual tone, "will you
take a note to your aunt? I think I will ride out to the farm
to-night."

David's young heart fluttered, and he went back to the farm invested
with a proud feeling of having assisted the fates. The air