uilt bird's
nest without caring to show it to Maggie, and peeled a willow switch
for Lucy and himself without offering one to Maggie. Lucy had said,
"Maggie, shouldn't _you_ like one?" but Tom was deaf.

Still, the sight of the peacock spreading his tail on the stackyard
wall, just as they reached the aunt's house, was enough to turn the
mind from sadness. And this was only the beginning of beautiful sights
at Garum Firs.

All the farmyard life was wonderful there--bantams, speckled and
top-knotted; Friesland hens, with their feathers all turned the wrong
way; Guinea-fowls that flew and screamed, and dropped their
pretty-spotted feathers; pouter pigeons, and a tame magpie; nay, a
goat, and a wonderful dog, half mastiff, half bull-dog, as large as a
lion!

Uncle Pullet had seen the party from the window, and made haste to
unbar and unchain the front door. Aunt Pullet, too, appeared at the
doorway, and as soon as her sister was within hearing said, "Stop the
children, Bessy; don't let 'em come up the doorsteps. Sally's bringing
the old mat and the duster to rub their shoes."

"You must come with me into the best room," she went on as soon as her
guests had passed the portal.

"May the children come too, sister?" inquired Mrs. Tulliver, who saw
that Maggie and Lucy were looking rather eager.

"Well," said Aunt Pullet, "it'll perhaps be safer for the girls to
come; they'll be touching something if we leave 'em behind."

When they all came down again Uncle Pullet said that he reckoned the
missis had been showing her bonnet--that was what had made them so long
upstairs.

Meanwhile Tom had spent the time on the edge of the sofa directly
opposite his Uncle Pullet, who looked at him with twinkling gray eyes
and spoke to him as "young sir."

"Well, young sir, what do you learn at school?" was the usual question
with Uncle Pullet; whereupon Tom always looked sheepish, rubbed his
hand across his face, and answered, "I don't know."

The appearance of the little girls made Uncle Pullet think of some
small sweetcakes, of which he kept a stock under lock and key for his
own private eating on wet days; but the three children had no sooner
got them between their fingers than Aunt Pullet desired them to abstain
from eating till the tray and the plates came, since with those crisp
cakes they would make the floor "all over" crumbs.

Lucy didn't mind that much, for the cake was so pretty she thought it
was rather a pity to