Mother Carey's Chickens

nxious to escape from this financial responsibility as soon as possible. As a matter of fact only three days elapsed before she obtained a tenant, and the

having the vegetable garden ploughed. It was finally decided that the girls should leave their spring

r two girls like Nancy and Kathleen the making of a new home would be more instruc

st now. Charlestown, the old house, the daily life, all had grown sad and dreary to them since father had gone. Everything spoke of him. Even mother longed for something to lift her thought out of the p

ll we put this, Muddy?" "Where will this go?" "May we throw this away?" would have distracted a less patient parent. When Gilbert returned from school at four, the air was filled with sounds of hammering and sawing and filing, screwing and unscrewing, and it was joy unspeakable to be obliged (or at least almost obliged) to call in clarion tones to one another, across the din and fanfare, and to compel answers in a high key. Peter took a constant succession of articles to the sh

Wages for years, but had insisted on lending all her savings to the Mistress of the Manor. Ellen the cook had loved "The Merriweathers," saying it was about the best book that ever she had read, and Miss Nancy would like to know, always being so interested, that she (Ellen) had found a place near Joanna in Salem, where she was offered five dollars a month more than she had received with the Careys. Nancy congratulated her warmly and then, tearing "The Merriweathers" to shreds, she put them in the kitchen

Nancy had a fresh idea every minute or two,

and a hundred and fifty dollars in exchange. It had been a wedding present from a good old uncle, who

and cobwebs, flew down from the attic into Kathleen's room ju

many or we shan't take

wered pro

your ears a

ifferent. Tel

rid of the Curse of

can't! Even if you could think out a w

think of mixing up a good lovely w

and Margaret Gilbert had been married, Cousin Ann Chadwick had presented them with four tall black and white marble mantel ornaments shaped like funeral urn

se of sending on to them the mantel ornaments and the Dirty Boy. "I know what your home is to you," she used to say to them, "and how you must miss your ornamen

they had given an especially beautiful party for the Admiral, Captain Carey had carried the whole lot to the attic, but Cousin Ann arrived unexpecte

e dinner table. "It's rather nice for a change, and after all, perhaps you s

, for she was devoted to the family in her own peculiar way; wh

oor. "Thou dost know that the china-packer comes early to-morrow morn, and tha

es

hat tidy mother scrubbing the ears of that unwilling boy ever since we were born,-you and I, or t

zled Kathleen, trying to model her conversation on

cherished articles from Charlestown to Beulah, certain tragedies will occur, certain accidents will happen, although Cousin Ann knows that the Carey family is a well regulated one. But if there ar

Kathleen testily. "Why not now? Ellen and Gilbe

, because I have planned all in secret, well and thoroug

ried silently to the dining room. These safely deposited, they took You Dirty Boy from its abominable pedestal of Mexican onyx (al

d packed the barrel in the corner where it stood, so they simply laid the cover on top and threw a piece of sacking carelessly over it. The whole performance had been punctuated with such hysterical laughter from Kathleen that she was too weak to be of any real use,-she simply aided and abetted the chief conspirator. The night was not as other nights. The girls kept waking up to laugh a little, then they went to sl

ina-packers. "We filled one barrel last evening," she explained to them. "Will yo

t down to the station this afternoon,

d. "We are very fond of our glass and chin

akage so long as you de

aid the

l, virtuous J.P. & Co. "There's no need to use any care with that c

n the corner, being separated from the others, looked to him especially important, so he gave particular attention to that; pasted on it one label marked "Fragile," one "This Sid

ty Boy barrel. "You'd ought to have walked to Greentown and carried th

you keep everybody 'n' everything from teching it! Does this

ind o' dull and turn it

rtment of the A.&B. The answer, though not proper to record in this place, was worthy of Perkins's opponent, who had a standing grudge against the entire race of exp