feud with the hero of the
hour. "You can take Baby Tillett and sit a little way apart from her so she
won't have to feed him all the time to keep him quiet."

"I can take eight people in my car, Mother Corn-tassel," said Matthew,
with the most beautiful eagerness.

"I can get in five," added Bess, with an equal eagerness. "Can I have the
Addcocks?" Bess and the pessimistic Mrs. Addcock had got together over some
medicine to prevent pip in the conservatory young Leghorns.

"Yes, and Matthew can take all the eight Spains if I can sit down Mrs.
Spain to a bolt of gingham in time to get them all nicely covered for such
a company," decreed the general, as she ran over in her mind's eye the rest
of the population of Riverfield. "I'll make all the men hitch their best
teams to the different rigs, and by starting early and taking both dinner
and supper on the way we can get there in plenty of time. Twenty miles is
not more than a half day's trip."

"I can sit by you and hold two Spains in my lap," I heard Polly plan with
Matthew.

"Sure you can," he answered her. "I think the loveliest thing about
Matthew Berry is the way he speaks to women and children." As he answered,
he piled Aunt Mary and Polly in beside the rest of the wheat-bags and
motored them away down the avenue.

"Ann, please come to town with me," pleaded Bess as she got into her car
and prepared to follow in the wake of the wheat-bags. "I miss you so, and
Belle weeps at the mention of you. She and I are having dinner at the Old
Hickory Club with Houston Jeffries and Owen to-night. Matt will come, and
let's have one good old time. I came all this way to get you."

"I honestly, honestly can't, Bess," I said as I took her hand stretched
down from her seat behind the wheel to me, and put my cheek against it.
"I've got this whole farm to feed between now and night. Both incubators
must have their supper of oil or _you_ know what'll happen. Mrs. Ewe and
family must be fed, or rather she must be fed so as to pass it along at
about breakfast time, I should say, not being wise in biology or natural
history; the entire Bird family are invited to supper with me, and I even
have to carry a repast of corn over the meadows to my pet abhorrences,
Rufus' swine, because he has retired to the hay-loft with a flannel rag
around his head, which means I have offended him or that father has given
him an extra absent-minded drink from the decanter that Matthew brought
him. Pecker