irds are vonderful fine in gay feathers and the flowers are fancy and
the butterflies--ach, mebbe when I'm big I'll understand it better, or
mebbe I'll dress up pretty then too."

With that cheering thought she turned again to the road and resumed her
walk, but the skipping mood had fled. She pulled her sunbonnet to its
proper place and walked briskly along, still enjoying thoroughly, though
less exuberantly, the beauty of the June morning.

The scent of pink clover mingled with the odor of grasses and the
delicate perfume of sweetbrier. Wood sorrel nestled in the grassy
corners near the crude rail fences, daisies and spiked toad-flax grew
lavishly among the weeds of the roadside. In the meadows tall milkweed
swayed its clusters of pink and lavender, marsh-marigolds dotted the
grass with discs of pure gold, and Queen Anne's lace lifted its
parasols of exquisite loveliness. Phoebe reveled in it all; her cheeks
were glowing as she left the beauty of the country behind her and came
at last to the little town of Greenwald.

CHAPTER II

OLD AARON'S FLAG

GREENWALD is an old town but it is a delightfully interesting one. It
does not wear its antiquity as an excuse for sinking into mouldering
uselessness. It presents, rather, a strange mingling of the quaint,
romantic and historic with the beautiful, progressive and modern. Though
it clings reverently to honored traditions it is ever mindful of the
fact that the welfare of its inhabitants is dependent upon reasonable
progress in its religious, educational and industrial life.

The charming stamp of its antiquity is revealed in its great old trees;
its wide Market Square from which narrower streets branch to the east,
west, north and south; its numerous houses of the plain, substantial
type of several generations ago; its occasional little, low houses which
have withstood the march of modern building and stand squarely beside
houses of more elaborate and later design; but chiefly in its
old-fashioned gardens. All the old-time flowers are favorites there and
refuse to be displaced by any newcomer. Sweet alyssum and candytuft
spread carpets of bloom along the neat garden walks, hollyhocks and
dahlias look boldly out to the streets, while the old-fashioned
sweet-scented roses grow on great bushes which have been undisturbed for
three or more generations.

To Phoebe Metz, Greenwald, with its two thousand inhabitants, its
several churches, post-office and numerous st