two large pearls, which I had
carefully put in the soft felt hat I had purchased to go with the smocks
for fifteen dollars at Goertz's.

"Well, what do you know about that?" exclaimed Matthew, with real
astonishment, as he sat down on his heels and took the two treasures into
his highly manicured hands. "Gee, they are right hot off the bat!" he
exclaimed, as he detected some of the warmth still left in them, I suppose.

"Yes, and I've got to get these nests done right away so as to be ready to
catch the rest of them," I said and began to saw furiously, as if I were
constructing a bucket to catch a deluge.

"Say, gimme the saw, Ann, and you get the fodder and things to put in the
bottom of them to keep them from smashing as they come," said Matthew, as
he flung off his coat, jammed his motor-cap on the back of his head, and
took the saw from my unresisting hand.

"I'll get the whitewash and whiten them as you finish them," I said, as I
hurriedly consulted the torn piece of wrapping-paper I took from one of
the huge pockets of my smock.

"All right, but you had better hump yourself, for I believe I'm going to be
some carpenter. This saw has a kind of affinity feeling to my hand," said
Matthew, as he put his foot on one end of the plank and began to make the
saw fly through the wood like a silver knife through fluffy cake. If saws
were the only witnesses, the superiority of men over women would be
established in very short order. "And say, Ann, I wish you would be
thinking what you are going to charge for a half interest in this business.
Law and real estate look slow to me after these returns right before my
eyes," he added, as he stopped to move the pearl treasures farther out of
the way of a possible flying plank.

"I'm going to give you one of them to take home with you, Matt," I
answered, with a most generous return of his appreciation of these
foundation pebbles of my family fortune. Then I went to appeal to Rufus for
the whitewash.

"They's a half barrel uf lime and a bucket and bresh in the corner uf the
barn what Mas' Adams made me git, he did; but it's fer the hawgs and can't
be wasted on no chickens," he said, answering my very courteous request
with a great lack of graciousness.

"The chickens will pay it back to the hogs, Rufus," I answered airily as I
ran back to the barn, eager for the fray.

And a gorgeous fray it was, with Matthew whistling and directing and
pounding and having the time of his ve