own to the chubby-kins next to
the baby,--and Mamie was sitting flat on the grass in front of them
nursing little Ned, with big Ned sitting beside her with his arm around
both her and the baby. He was looking first down into her face, and then
at the industrious kiddie getting his supper from the maternal fount,
and then at the handsome bunch on the steps, as he alternately munched a
bite of his cookie and fed Mamie one, to the delight of the children.
The expression on his face as he looked at them, and her, and ate and
laughed, is what is back of all that goes to make the American nation
the greatest on earth. Amen!

"Sallie," I said, as I reached out and took her plump white hand in
mine, "our men are the most wonderful in the world and they are ours any
way we get them. They don't care how it is done, and neither do we, just
so we belong in the right way."

"Then you don't think it would be any harm for me to tell Mr. Haley I
think I could live on eighteen hundred dollars a year, until he gets
sent to a larger church?" was the bomb that, thus encouraged, Sallie
exploded in my face.

I'm awfully glad that I didn't get a chance to answer, for I don't want
to be responsible for the future failure or success of Mr. Haley's
ministry. Just then Henrietta burst into the room with the Kitten in her
arms.

"Keep her for me, Evelina, please, ma'am," she said, with the dearest
little chuckle, but not forgetting the polite "please," which Jane had
had to suggest to her just once. What you've done for that wayward
unmanageable genius of a child, Jane dear, makes you deserve ten of your
own. That is--help!

"Cousin Augusta and Nell and Dickie and me is a going out to watch the
man put the dyn'mite in the hole to blow the creek right up and
Glendale, too, so they can see if they is enough clean water to put in
the waterworks," she continued to explain. "Nell is a-going to take
Dickie in her car, and Cousin Augusta is a-going to take me and Uncle
Peter in her buggy. Dilsie have got the Kit and Cousin Marfy is
a-watching to see she don't do nothing wrong with her. Oh, may I go,
Sallie? Jane said I must always ask you."

"Yes, dearest," answered Sallie, immensely flattered by the deference
thus paid her.

"How wonderful an influence the little talks Mr. Haley has had with
Henrietta have had on her," she said, with such a happy glow on her face
as the reformed one departed that I succeeded in suppressing the laugh
that rose