t, when he can't make them do more than
to lick my hands."

They laughed as if that were funny.

"Well, I didn't know about this," said Sarah. "How long have you lived
at Pryors'?"

You couldn't have heard what Laddie said if he'd spoken; so he waited
until he could be heard, and it never worried him a speck.

He only stood and laughed too; then, "Long enough," he said, "to know
that all of us are making a big and cruel mistake in taking them at
their word, and leaving them penned up there weltering in misery. What
we should do, is to go over there, one at a time, or in a body, and
batter at the door of their hearts, until we break down the wall of
pride they have built around them, ease their pain, and bring them with
us socially, if they are going to live among us. You people who talk
loudly and often about loving God, and 'doing unto others,' should have
gone long ago, for Jesus' sake; I'm going for the sake of a girl, with
a face as sweet, and a heart as pure, as any accepted angel at the foot
of the throne. Mother, I want a cup of peach jelly, and some of that
exceptionally fine cake you served at dinner, to take to our sick
neighbour."

Mother left the room.

"Father, I want permission to cut and carry a generous chestnut branch,
burred, and full fruited, to the young woman. There is none save ours
in this part of the country, and she may never have seen any, and be
interested. And I want that article about foot disease in horses, for
Mr. Pryor. I'll bring it back when he finishes."

Father folded the paper and handed it to Laddie, who slipped it in his
pocket.

"Take the finest branch you can select," father said, and I almost fell
over.

He had carried those trees from Ohio, before I had been born, and
mother said for years he wrapped them in her shawl in winter and held
an umbrella over them in summer, and father always went red and grinned
when she told it. He was wild about trees, and bushes, so he made up
his mind he'd have chestnuts. He planted them one place, and if they
didn't like it, he dug them up and set them another where he thought
they could have what they needed and hadn't got the last place.
Finally, he put them, on the fourth move, on a little sandy ridge
across the road from the wood yard, and that was the spot. They shot
up, branched, spread, and one was a male and two were females, so the
pollen flew, the burrs filled right, and we had a bag of chestnuts to
send each ch