y old Michael if you
would let me have them," faltered Peggy. "But, oh, mother dear, I do
want them so much. It isn't as if I had spent my money on something
foolish, like candy."

"No, that is true," said Mrs. Owen. After all, she had thought of
keeping hens herself.

"I'll tell you what we'll do, Peggy," she said. "You can sell
Henrietta's eggs to me, when she begins to lay, at whatever the market
price is, and the money can go toward their food, and if there is any
left you can have it to spend. That will be a good lesson in arithmetic
for us."

So Peggy and Alice ran over to old Michael's house, where he was always
to be found at his dinner-hour, to tell him the glad news.

Mrs. Farrell came to the door. She was a prosperous, comfortable looking
person, with a plump, trig figure and smoothly arranged white hair.
Peggy thought of telling her about the geography game, but there was
something about her that made her hesitate. She was afraid Mrs. Farrell
would think it a crazy game.

"Won't you come in, you little dears?" said Mrs. Farrell.

Alice looked pleased at being called a "little dear," but Peggy was all
the more sure that Mrs. Farrell would not care for the geography game.

"I just wanted to see Mr. Farrell a minute," she said.

"He is at dinner. Can't you give me the message?"

"I don't think I could," said Peggy. "It is very important, and it is
not easy to remember all of it. We'll not keep him a minute--truly, we
won't."

"I guess I can remember the message if you can."

"It is about a hen and a rooster that Miss Betsy Porter wants him to
call for to send down to our house--only mother wants our hen-house
fixed first."

How bald it seemed put in this way! If only she could have seen old
Michael himself, how differently she would have worded the message!

"It isn't very hard to remember that message, dearie," said Mrs.
Farrell, in her cooing voice.

Peggy hated to have her call her "dearie." Half the pleasure in her
purchase would be gone if she could not see old Michael. Suddenly, she
had a bright idea. She ran around the side of the house to the kitchen
window and waved her hand to old Michael.

It was one of the warm days in late autumn, and she was still wearing
one of her blue frocks. Her hair was flying about and she pushed it
back. Old Michael loved children, and he never hesitated to come at
their call. He hastily shoved a large piece of apple pie into his mouth,
and, seizing a pi