mother stand on
Jeanette?"

"Mother Mason," answered Barclay, "is against it."

"All right," replied Lycurgus, "I vote aye. What does she want?" he
asked.

"Susan B.," returned Barclay.

"Susan B. Anthony?" queried the new grandfather.

"Exactly," replied the new father.

The two rode down the street in silence; as they turned into the
Barclay driveway Lycurgus chuckled, "Well--well--Susan B. Wants to
put breeches on that child before she gets her eyes open." Then he
turned on Barclay with a broad grin of fellowship, as he pinched the
young man's leg and laughed, "Say--John--honest, ain't that just
like a woman?"

And so Jeanette Thatcher Barclay came into this world, and what with
her Grandmother Barclay uncovering her to look at the Thatcher nose,
and her Grandmother Mason taking her to the attic so that she could go
upstairs before she went down, that she might never come down in the
world, and what with her Grandfather Mason rubbing her almost raw with
his fuzzy beard before the women could scream at him, and what with
her father trying to jostle her on his knee, and what with all the
different things Mrs. Ward, the mother of six, would have done to her,
and all the things Mrs. Culpepper, mother of three, would have done to
her, and Mrs. McHurdie, mother of none, prevented the others from
doing, Jeanette had rather an exciting birthday. And Jeanette Barclay
as a young woman often looks at the scrap-book with its crinkly leaves
and reads this item from the _Daily Banner_: "The angels visited our
prosperous city again last Thursday, June 12, and left a little one
named Jeanette at the home of our honoured townsman, John Barclay.
Mother and child progressing nicely." But under this item is a long
poem clipped from a paper printed a week later,--Jeanette has counted
the stanzas many times and knows there are seventeen, and each one
ends with "when the angels brought Jeanette." Her father used to read
the verses to her to tease her when she was in her teens, and once
when she was in her twenties, and Jeanette had the lonely poet out to
dinner one Sunday, she sat with him on the sofa in the library,
looking at the old scrap-book. Their eyes fell upon the verses about
the angels bringing Jeanette, and the girl noticed the old man mumming
it over and smiling.

"Tell me, Uncle Watts," she asked, "why did you make such a long poem
about such a short girl?"

The poet ran his fingers through his rough gray beard,