heir overalled drivers. Wheat in bales and
wheat in sacks was piled on wagon after wagon, and I counted eleven
teams hauling in loads of shucked ears of corn that looked almost two
feet long. Oh, I was glad to think that those people who had fled from a
famine-stricken land would meet that procession as soon as they got off
the train, and my eyes misted so, as I thought of the joy that must well
up in their hearts, that I came very near running over an old pig mother
who was waddling across the road in the lead of nine of the fattest
little black-and-white sucklings I have ever seen, each one with his
tail curled at exactly the same angle. Giving her a wide run I swung off
into Brier Lane. The old cardinal that had been so cross to me all
summer, when poor Redwheels's puff had disturbed his family, was
trillingly glad to see me, and flew almost across my shoulder as he
darted and whirled his welcome. And what should I meet in the middle of
the lane, evidently off playing hooky where she should not have been,
but Mrs. Buttercup and my young spotted namesake! I immediately climbed
out of the car and greeted them both so affectionately that, with my
arms around Mrs. Buttercup's neck, I persuaded her to go back the way
she had come, while I drove along behind her at a suitable snail's pace.
I had to stop every once in a while, when she turned around, to assure
her that I knew it was best for her to go home with her full udder, as
Sam would soon be there to be welcomed and with company to be fed.

After I had turned her into the south meadow gate, opposite the
cedar-pole entrance to The Briers, I went up the hill at a lightning
pace because the nearer I got to the fledgling and my garden the more
anxious I was for a reunion with them both. I met the garden first, as I
rounded up in front of the old hovering, red-roofed house that looked
more like home to me than any building I had ever seen in my short and
eventful life.

There is no love in the world that reciprocates like that of a garden.
If you work and love and plan for it, promptly it turns around and over
and gives back a hundredfold more than you put into it. All summer long
we had been digging out of, picking from, and cutting off of that little
plot of ground, and there it was reaching out with more to return to me.
Long rows of white and purple cosmos danced and fluttered round-eyed
blossoms in welcome, while some bronze xenias fairly bobbed over and
kissed my ro