reddie ventured. "We are
only going to stay in the country this month."

"Maybe I could go," lisped Sandy, "'cause nobody ain't got charge of me
now. Mrs. Manily has gone away, you know, and I don't b'lieve in the
other lady, do you?"

Freddie did not quite understand this but he said "no" just to agree
with Sandy.

"And you know the big girl, Nellie, who always curled my hair without
pulling it,--she's gone away too, so maybe I'm your brother now," went
on the little orphan.

"Course you are!" spoke up Freddie manfully, throwing his arms around
the other, "You're my twin brother too, 'cause that's the realest kind.
We are all twins, you know--Nan and Bert, and Flossie and me and you!"

By this time the other Bobbseys had come out to welcome Sandy. They
thought it best to let Freddie entertain him at first, so that he would
not be strange, but now Uncle Daniel just took the little fellow up in
his arms and into his heart, for all good men love boys, especially
when they are such real little men as Sandy and Freddie happened to be.

"He's my twin brother, Uncle Daniel," Freddie insisted. "Don't you
think he's just like me curls and all?"

"He is certainly a fine little chap!" the uncle replied, meaning every
word of it, "and he is quite some like you too. Now let us feed the
chickens. See how they are around us expecting something to eat?"

The fowls were almost ready to eat the pearl buttons off Sandy's coat,
so eager were they for their meal, and it was great fun for the two
little boys to toss the corn to them.

"Granny will eat from your hand," exclaimed Uncle Daniel, "You see, she
is just like granite-gray stone, but we call her Granny for short."

The Plymouth Rock hen came up to Sandy, and much to his delight ate the
corn out of his little white hand.

"Oh, she's a pretty chicken!" he said, stroking Granny as he would a
kitten. "I dust love chitens," he added, sitting right down on the
sandy ground to let Granny come up on his lap. There was so much to see
in the poultry yard that Sandy, Freddie, and Uncle Daniel lingered
there until Martha appeared at the back door and rang the big dinner
bell in a way that meant, "Hurry up! something will get cold if you
don't."

And the something proved to be chicken pot-pie with dumplings that
everybody loves. And after that there came apple pudding with hard
sauce, just full of sugar.

"Is it a party?" Sandy whispered to Freddie, for he was not accustomed
to