y," nodding in a half-humorous fashion.

"Don't you want to come out and see me? You don't have any Indian corn
growing in England, I've heard."

"Did it belong to the Indians?" asked Doris.

"I rather guess it did, in the first instance. But now we plant it for
ourselves. _We_ don't, because father sold the two-acre lot, and they're
bringing a street through. So now we have only the meadow."

Doris looked at the uncles, but she couldn't understand a word they were
saying.

"Come!" Warren held out his hand.

"Put the big kitchen apron round her, Warren," said Betty, thinking of
her silk gown.

He tied the apron round her neck and brought back the strings round her
waist, so she was all covered. Then he found her a low chair, and poked
the kitchen fire, putting on a pine log to make a nice blaze. He brought
out from the shed a tub and a basket of ears of corn. Across the tub he
laid the blade of an old saw and then sat on the end to keep it firm.

"Now you'll see business. Maybe you've never seen any corn before?"

She looked over in the basket, and then took up an ear with a mysterious
expression.

"It won't bite you," he said laughingly.

"But how queer and hard, with all these little points," pinching them
with her dainty fingers.

"Grains," he explained. "And a husk grows on the outside to keep it
warm. When the winter is going to be very cold the husk is very thick."

"Will this winter be cold?"

"Land alive! yes. Winters always _are_ cold."

Warren settled himself and drew the ear across the blade. A shower of
corn rattled down on the bottom of the tub.

"Oh! is that the way you peel it off?"

He threw his head back and laughed.

"Oh, you Englisher! We _shell_ it off."

"Well, it peels too. You peel a potato and an apple with a knife blade.
Oh, what a pretty white core!"

"Cob. We Americans are adding new words to the language. A core has
seeds in it. There, see how soft it is."

Doris took it in her hand and then laid her cheek against it. "Oh, how
soft and fuzzy it is!" she cried. "And what do you do with it?"

"We don't plant that part of it. That core has no seeds. You have to
plant a grain like this. The little clear point we call a heart, and
that sprouts and grows. This is a good use for the cob."

He had finished another, which he tossed into the fire. A bright blaze
seemed to run over it all at once and die down. Then the small end
flamed out and the fire crept along in a doubt