s scratch up all the flowers I plant," sighed Aunt
'Mira. "I give up all hopes of havin' posies till Jason mends the
henyard fence."

"Now you say yourself the hens only lay when they're rangin' around,
'Mira," observed Uncle Jason, mildly.

"Ya-as. They lay," admitted Aunt 'Mira. "But I don't git more'n ha'f
of what they lay. They steal their nests so. Ol' Speckle brought off
a brood only yesterday. I'd been wonderin' where that hen was layin'
for a month."

"But, anyway, we can rake the yard and trim the edges of the walk,"
Janice said to Marty.

"Ya-as, we kin," admitted Marty, grinning. "But will we?"

Janice, however, never lost her temper with this hobbledehoy cousin.
Marty could be coaxed, if not driven. After breakfast she urged him
out to the shed, and they overhauled the conglomeration of rusted and
decrepit hand tools, which had been gathered by Uncle Jason during
forty years of desultory farming.

"Here're three rakes," said Marty. "All of 'em have lost teeth,
an'--Hi tunket! that one's got a broken handle."

"But there are two which are usable," laughed Janice. "Come on, Marty.
Let's rake the front yard all over. You know it will please your
mother. And then you can tote the rubbish away in the wheelbarrow
while I trim the edges of the front walk."

"Huh! we don't never use that front walk. Nobody ever comes to our
front door," said Marty.

"And there's a nice wide porch there to sit on pleasant evenings, too,"
cried Janice.

"Huh!" came Marty's famous snort of derision. "The roof leaks like a
sieve and the floor boards is rotted. Las' time the parson came to
call he broke through the floor an' come near sprainin' his ankle."

"But I thought Uncle Jason was a carpenter, too?" murmured Janice,
hesitatingly.

"Well! didn't ye know that carpenters' roofs are always leakin' an'
that shoemakers' wives go barefoot?" chuckled Marty. "Dad says he'll
git 'round to these chores sometime. Huh!"

Nevertheless, Marty set to work with his cousin, and that Saturday
morning the premises about the old Day house saw such a cleaning up as
had not happened within the memory of the oldest inhabitant along
Hillside Avenue. There was a good sod of grass under the rubbish. The
lawn had been laid down years and years before, and the grass was
rooted well and the mould was rich and deep. All the old place wanted
was a "chance," for it to become very pretty and homelike.

Marty, however, declare