op. Nothing beautiful could be discovered, nothing
interesting, but there was something usable and homely about the
place. It was the favorite and untroubled bower of the bean-pickers,
to which they might retreat unmolested from the public apartments of
this rustic institution.

Betsey Lane blew away the chaff from her handful of beans. The spring
breeze blew the chaff back again, and sifted it over her face and
shoulders. She rubbed it out of her eyes impatiently, and happened to
notice old Peggy holding her own handful high, as if it were an
oblation, and turning her queer, up-tilted head this way and that, to
look at the beans sharply, as if she were first cousin to a hen.

"There, Miss Bond, 'tis kind of botherin' work for you, ain't it?"
Betsey inquired compassionately.

"I feel to enjoy it, anything that I can do my own way so," responded
Peggy. "I like to do my part. Ain't that old Mis' Fales comin' up the
road? It sounds like her step."

The others looked, but they were not far-sighted, and for a moment
Peggy had the advantage. Mrs. Fales was not a favorite.

"I hope she ain't comin' here to put up this spring. I guess she won't
now, it's gettin' so late," said Betsey Lane. "She likes to go rovin'
soon as the roads is settled."

"'Tis Mis' Fales!" said Peggy Bond, listening with solemn anxiety.
"There, do let's pray her by!"

"I guess she's headin' for her cousin's folks up Beech Hill way," said
Betsey presently. "If she'd left her daughter's this mornin', she'd
have got just about as far as this. I kind o' wish she had stepped in
just to pass the time o' day, long's she wa'n't going to make no
stop."

There was a silence as to further speech in the shed chamber; and even
the calves were quiet in the barnyard. The men had all gone away to
the field where corn-planting was going on. The beans clicked steadily
into the wooden measure at the pickers' feet. Betsey Lane began to
sing a hymn, and the others joined in as best they might, like
autumnal crickets; their voices were sharp and cracked, with now and
then a few low notes of plaintive tone. Betsey herself could sing
pretty well, but the others could only make a kind of accompaniment.
Their voices ceased altogether at the higher notes.

"Oh my! I wish I had the means to go to the Centennial," mourned
Betsey Lane, stopping so suddenly that the others had to go on
croaking and shrilling without her for a moment before they could
stop. "It seems to me