will it come in, mother?" Alice asked.

"I have not even got a ship--that's the worst of it. However, as we
don't live at the seashore a garden is more useful. If we make the
garden pay perhaps we can all have new hats."

"But they'll be winter hats if we wait for the garden, and I want the
peanut straw," said Peggy.

Flora Butler, who was behind the counter, came to the door and spoke to
them.

"How much is the peanut straw hat?" Peggy asked.

"Peggy, I have told you I can't get the hat for you," said her mother.

"It really is a bargain," said Miss Butler.

"It is a very pretty hat," said Mrs. Owen, "but I am spending more than
I can afford on my garden."

"How's the canary?" Peggy asked.

"He is all right. He will give you a free concert any time you can stop
to hear him."

"It seemed too bad he could not be free like the other birds," Peggy
thought.

And then one day, as they were coming back from school, she saw the
empty cage in the window, and Mrs. Butler, half distracted, was asking
the school-children if any of them had seen her canary-bird. "I don't
know what my husband will say when he comes back from the store for his
dinner, and he finds it gone," she said. "He sets as much store by that
canary as if it was a puppy."

The school-children stood about in an interested group.

"How did it get out?" Peggy asked.

"I was cleaning Sol's cage, as usual, and he was out in the room. The
window was open a little at the top, same as I've had it before once or
twice these spring days, and Sol never took notice. The worst of it is,
my husband told me I hadn't orter keep it open, even a speck, while the
bird was out of his cage. 'Sol can wriggle through the smallest kind of
a crack,' says he; and it appears he was right. My, but he'll be angry!
'Marthy, it'll serve you right,' he'll say."

The children saw Mr. Butler coming down the street, just then, and they
waited in fascinated silence to see what would happen next. One of the
schoolboys, who always loved to make a sensation, called out as he
passed, "Did you know your canary-bird is lost?"

"You don't expect I am going to swallow that yarn, Gilbert Lawson?" the
old man said. "You'd better shut up. 'Taint the first of April."

"But it really and truly has flown away, Mr. Butler," said Peggy.

"Flown away! Did my old woman leave the window open? Marthy, didn't I
tell you what would happen?" he said angrily as he vanished into the
house. They cou