--about the teas and things!
Maybe his mother got 'em started and he didn't want to hurt her!"

It was like Peter Hyde, so gentle with children and animals, to stand
up now for even Barry Wallace's kind.

"You're just like Dad," Nancy cried warmly, then stopped, a little
frightened. But of course Peter had not been in Freedom long enough to
know anything about the Leavitts.

He bowed with great ceremony, one hand over his heart.

"If Dad's like daughter, I thank you for the compliment. Now, if you
will linger longer with me I'd like to show you Mrs. Sally and her
babies. Sally is my experimental pig. I've built a piggery for her
with a plunge and a sunken garden, and if you don't declare that Sally
enjoys such improved surroundings, I'll know my whole summer's work's a
failure."

Nancy walked over the rough ground toward the barns with a light heart.
She had a delightful sense of being "pals" with this new Peter
Hyde--who, while the Barry Wallaces were swaggering around with their
medals, was up here in an out-of-the-way corner of the nation, fighting
a new sort of a fight! He actually _wanted_ her approval of his new
piggery!

CHAPTER XVI

PETER LENDS A HAND

It was quite natural that Nancy should take her problems to Peter Hyde.

More correctly, she did not take them--Peter Hyde discovered them when,
a few days later, he found Nancy alone in her Bird's-nest, completely
surrounded by sheets of paper, a frown wrinkling her entire face,
furiously chewing one end of her pencil.

There had, of course, to be some explanation of the manuscript. Nancy
told him of the play she was writing, how she had really come to North
Hero to finish it!

"I thought I'd have hours and hours to work. And I was so glad when I
found this hiding place. I've been here, now, weeks and weeks, and
have done scarcely a thing!"

"Is it because the Muse will not come?" asked Peter, eying the
scattered sheets with awe.

"Oh, it would _come_--if it had a chance! My head's just bursting with
things I want to write and I dream about them in my sleep. But--it
sounds silly--I'm so busy. Maybe the things I do don't seem important
but I just can't escape them."

She made room for Peter on the seat beside her. Then she told him of
Aunt Milly; of that first trip to the orchard, how it had been the
beginning of a new life for the little woman.

"I bring her downstairs every day now, right after breakfast, and she's
one of t