Neither spoke a word until across the road and in the next field; then the cousins glanced at each other and simultaneously burst into merry laughter.

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V

SOME NEIGHBORLY GOSSIP

"My woman, she'll be in d'rectly," said Mr. Bunt, removing the pipe from his lips to greet the Wood cousins at his door. He kicked away the three yellow shepherd dogs snapping at their heels, as he added, apologetically, "The women allus has to fix, ye know."

"Well, girls, thought you wasn't never comin'," cried Mrs. Bunt, at that moment entering the living-room from the kitchen. "Set down, an' make yourselves to home. Have cheers. Polly, you take thur things."

She was a comely woman, this Mrs. Bunt; and she wore her hair in a tight pug in the back corresponding to a turned-up nose in front. Her company gown was a wrapper of green and yellow calico, made with a Watteau pleat in the back.

"Polly, have you furgot that you-uns is

a young lady?" continued Mrs. Bunt. Her second daughter was trying on the hats and wraps that she had appropriated. "S'pose you quit that child foolishness of tryin' on other folkses belongin's an' light a few pine slivers in this hyur stove. An' leave the front door open so's to give the sun a chanc't to warm up. I laid off to make a fire in this room, but someways I didn't git around to it. It's cold-like in hyur-this room ain't easy het from the kitchen." And their hostess retired to hasten preparations for dinner.

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Say, you-uns is awful fixy," said Polly, admiringly. She perched a white sailor on her sandy, frizzled head, and looked sidewise at her image in the cracked lookingglass. "You look good in this sailor hat of yourn, Hermia. Your hair kind o' sticks out at the sides, so you don't look good 'thout you have a hat on."

The Bunt shanty was built in the shape of a capital T, the end of one long room joining the side of the other. Log-cabin quilts covered the beds; the windows were hidden by newspaper curtains pinned

across, and the walls were gay with picture-cards advertising soaps and sewingmachines and cottolene. The rooms were bare, but orderly and clean.

Through the open door the boys, tall, long-legged fellows, were seen coming in from work; they cast longing glances at the table.

"Maw," said the younger and slighter of the two," ain't dinner 'most ready? I'm that hungry, I feel like I were all stove in."

66 "In half a minute, now. When them sody biscuits is browned, we'll set right down."

The boys shied away from the open door, but the sound of their voices was carried into the next room.

"Ketch any rabbits in yur trap last night, Ted?" This from Alonzo, who invariably wore a red bandanna neckerchief, loosely knotted, and whose features strongly resembled those of a goose.

"Ary a rabbit. But the trap ketched a owl-one of these yur little prairie-dog owls, you know. I packed that thur trap out yander an' set it on the side of the hill

whur they's likely to be rabbits, an' this mornin' yurly I paid a visit out thur, an' I found a owl had ben ketched instid of a rabbit. But it were all et up-all but one foot, 'n' hyur 'tis," fumbling in his pocket for the poor little foot.

"Well, I swan!" remarked Alonzo; "I'd like to know what the critter were that et up the owl; like's not 'twere a badger or a ki-ote."

"Say, Lon!" called Polly, "goin' to ride the colt after the cows to-night?"

"I aim to."

"Better have her cinch good 'n' fast. Us girls'll watch you off."

"I'd laugh if she throwed you," said Ted. "Betchoo she won't! I've rode skittisher mares 'n her afore now. She bucks enough jest to call to buck-she bucks nice. I've rode that mare of Art's, an' the fellar that rides her has got to have some grit, now I tell ye. I've seen that mare jump so high that I could see the sky under her.”

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'Hooray fur the bronco-buster!" roared

Ted.

The boys' hilarious mood died away when