y scientific rules, and Silas
caught the child from its mother's arms and repeated the tossing process,
while the baby shouted and struggled. At last the three, followed by the
family, retired to convenient chairs about the sitting-room fire.

"Now, Jack Horner, you can pare that thumb down a leetle more if you want
t'. You've swallowed enough wind to give you the colic for a day or two,"
Silas said when the child began to hiccough.

Elizabeth clapped her hands delightedly.

"You have named the baby!" she exclaimed.

"How's that?" Silas asked.

"Oh, John can't bear to have him called Johnnie, and John is too awfully
old for him now. Little Jack Horner--no, Little Jack Hunter. I'm so glad!
I just do love it; and we had called him Baby till I was afraid we'd never
quit it," Elizabeth said.

They kept the old man as long as they could induce him to stay, and when
he did go home it was with the settled conviction that he had been wanted.
He described the visit enthusiastically to Liza Ann and tried to induce
her to go over to see Elizabeth the next Sunday. Silas craved the
privilege of that baby's presence.

"I know, Si," his wife replied, "but she could come here if she wanted to.
It's her fool notions. John was th' greatest hand t' go you ever saw till
he married her, an' now he don't go nowhere, an' when I asked him about
it, he said she wasn't well! She's as well as any woman that's nursin',
an' she's got his mother t' help 'er too."

"Well, I don't pretend t' know th' why's an' th' wherefores of it, but I
do know there ain't a stuck-up bone in 'er body--I don't care what nobody
says," loyal Silas Chamberlain replied.

The new mood stayed with Elizabeth Hunter and called for much perplexed
introspection. It had been a perplexing day. There was no reason that she
could assign for her contradictory actions. She found herself even
softened toward John and able to enter into his attempt to be sociable
after Silas's departure. He seemed to be anxious to set himself before her
in a kindlier light and she was able to meet the attempt as he wished.
Elizabeth lost faith in herself as she saw her apparent whimsicalness and
began to lash herself into line as John and his mother wished. She asked
no more to be taken places.

In May, Luther came to help John with his team, and for the first time in
months Elizabeth saw a neighbour woman. Luther lifted Sadie down from the
high seat with as much care as if she had been a ch