e Wigginses?"

"They've gone. Mrs. Wiggins and old Mrs. Wiggins were dreadful mad. Oh,
Ruth, you didn't do it on purpose, did you?"

"Do what on purpose?" said Ruth, pushing into the house, and looking
around the empty kitchen in a bewildered way. "I don't know what you
mean."

"Don't you know what you put into that parsnip stew?"

"No; I don't know of anything I put in but some salt, just before I went
to school; mother told me to. Why?"

"Oh, Ruth, you put in--saleratus!"

"I don't believe it."

Ruth flew into the pantry, and came out with a cracked blue cup. "Here,"
said she--"here's the salt-cup, and this is the one I got it out of, I
know."

"Taste of it," said Serena, solemnly.

Ruth tasted. "It _is_ saleratus," said she, looking at her sister in
horror. "Did it spoil the stew?"

"It was--dreadful."

"I don't see how it happened," Ruth said, slowly, puckering her
forehead, "unless mother dipped out some saleratus in the salt-cup to
bring out in the kitchen when she mixed the sour-milk cakes for
breakfast. I don't know anything about it, true's I live and breathe. I
hope they didn't think I did such a mean thing as that on purpose."

"Well, I don't know as they really thought you did, but you know you did
kind of jerk round, Ruth, and the Wigginses saw it."

"What did they say?"

"Well," said Serena, "we all sat down to the table, and mother had put
on the bread and apple-sauce for the rest of us, and she helped the
Wigginses to the stew. There wasn't more'n enough to go around, but she
kept the cover over the dish so they shouldn't suspect, and all the
rest of us said we wouldn't take any.

"Well, Mrs. Wiggins she tasted, and old Mrs. Wiggins she tasted. Then
they looked at mother. Mother she didn't know what it meant, and she
kept getting redder and redder. Finally she spoke up. 'Is there anything
the matter with the stew?' says she.

"Then Mrs. Wiggins she pushed over her plate for mother to taste of the
stew, and the first thing we knew they were all talking at once. Old
Mrs. Wiggins said she'd noticed how we acted kind of stiff, and as if we
wasn't glad to see them, the minute she come, and Mrs. Wiggins said she
had, too, and she'd seen you put the saleratus into the stew, and she
thought from the way you switched around you were up to something.
Mother she tried to excuse it off, but they wouldn't hear a word. They
said it didn't look very likely that it was an accident, and they
noticed