the elf-people were whispering and
tittering and scampering about in surreptitious revel. The breeze
of dawn, tired and worn out, was sinking to a fitful doze in the
cottonwood foliage near by. In the lattice of the kitchen porch two
butterflies were chasing the sun flecks in and out among the branches
of the climbing rose. Even the humble burdock weeds and sunflowers
lining the path that led to the gate seemed to be exalted by the
breath of the morning air, and not out of harmony with the fine, high
chord of ecstasy that was stirring the soul of things. And yet in that
hour, James Sears, with a green-checked gingham apron tied about his
neck, stood near a rain-barrel, bobbing up and down on a churn-handle.
His back ached, and his heart was full of bitterness at the scheme of
creation. For it was Saturday morning--his by every law, precedent, or
tradition known or reported in the Court of Boyville. But instead
of inhaling the joys of the new day, James, whose Courtly name was
"Jimmie," looked for yellow granules on the dasher, and promised God
if He would let him grow up that his little boy should never have to
churn.

[Illustration: _His heart was full of bitterness_.]

Any boy knows that it is a degrading thing to churn, and he further
knows that to wear a green-checked gingham apron is odious beyond
description; however, if the disgusting thing is tied under a boy's
arms, from whence it may be slipped down over the hips and the knees
to the ground, by a certain familiar twist of the body, the case is
not absolutely hopeless. But Jimmy Sears's apron strings were tied
about his neck; so his despair was black and abysmal. Once in a while
Jimmy's bosom became too heavily freighted, and he paused to sigh.
He cheered himself up on these occasions by slyly licking the
churn-dasher; but the good cheer on the dasher was a stimulant that
left him more miserable than it found him. Ever and anon from some
remote chamber in the house behind him came the faint, gasping cry of
a day-old baby. That cry drowned the cooing of the doves, the song of
the robin, and the chirping of the dwellers in the grass; to Jimmy the
bleat of the little human lamb sounded like the roar of a lion. He
could endure penal servitude on his Saturday, with a patience born of
something approaching a philosophy; he could wear a checked gingham
apron, even as a saint wears an unbecoming halo; but the arrival of
the new baby--the fifth addition to the family