gainst the wall, she took her stand directly in
front of them. "Do you know your lessons, children?" she asked. Then
she squeaked back to herself, "Yes, ma'am."

"Well, then, Margaret, what's the best cow for butter?"

Mr. Jeminy began to laugh. But almost at once he became serious and
confused. For it occurred to him that he did not know what cow was
best for butter. "This child," he thought, "who cannot tell me why it
is necessary to take two apples from four apples, is nevertheless able
to distinguish between one cow and another. She is wiser than I am."

He stood gazing thoughtfully at Juliet, and smiling. The sun of late
afternoon, already about to sink in the west, was shining through the
window, covered with dust and cobwebs. And Mr. Jeminy, watching the
dust dancing in the sun, thought to himself: "I should like to stay
here; it is peaceful and friendly. I should like to help Mrs. Wicket
plant her little garden in the spring, and plow it under in the autumn.
Now it is growing late and I must go home again."

Juliet had tired of her play. "Tell me a story," she said. "Tell me
about the war, Mr. Jeminy. Tell me about Noel Ploughman."

But Mr. Jeminy shook his head. "No," he said, "it is time to drive
your mother's cow home from the fields. Some other day I will tell you
about the great wars of old, fought for no other reason than glory and
empire, which disappointed no one, except the vanquished. But there is
no time now. Come; we will go for the cow together."

Hand in hand they went down the road toward Mr. Crabbe's field, where
Mrs. Wicket rented pasturage for her cow. The sun was sinking above
the trees; and they heard, about them, in the fields, the silence of
evening, the song of the crickets and cicadas.

They found the cows gathered at the pasture bars, with sweet, misty
breath, their bells clashing faintly as they moved. "Go 'long," cried
Juliet, switching her little rod, to single out her own. And to the
patter of hoofs and the tonkle of bells, they started home again.

Mrs. Wicket, in the kitchen, watched them from her window, in the
clear, fading light. "How good he is," she thought. And she turned,
with a smile and a sigh, to set the table for Juliet's supper.

Juliet was singing along the roadside. "A tisket," she sang, "a
tasket, a green and yellow basket . . ." And she chanted, to a tune of
her own, an old verse she had once heard Mr. Jeminy singing:

When I was a