y, that the hereditary enemy had feared, for she
crouched up against the fence with a whimper.

"Kem along away from thar, ye miser'ble little stack o' bones!" he
cried, seizing his sister by one hand and giving her a jerk--"a-foolin'
round them Grinnells' fence an' a-hankerin' arter thar old baby!"

He felt that the pride of the Purdee family was involved in this
admission of envy.

"I jes wanter pat it on the head _wunst_," she sighed.

"Waal, ye won't now," said the Grinnell boys in chorus.

The Purdee grasp was gentler on the little girl's arm. This was due not
to fraternal feeling so much as to loyalty to the clan; "stack o' bones"
though she was, they were Purdee bones.

"Kem along," Ab Purdee exhorted her. "A baby ain't nuthin' extry,
nohow"--he glanced scoffingly at the infantile Grinnell. "The mountings
air fairly a-roamin' with 'em."

"We-uns 'ain't got none at our house," whined the sun-bonnet,
droopingly, moving off slowly on its legs, which, indeed, seemed
borrowed, so unsteady, and loath to go they were.

The Grinnell boys laughed aloud, jeeringly and ostentatiously, and the
Purdee blood was moved to retort: "We-uns don't want none sech ez that.
Nary tooth in her head!"

And indeed the widely stretched babbling lips displayed a vast vacuity
of gum.

Job Grinnell, who had listened with an attentive ear to the talk of the
children, had nevertheless continued his constant skimming of the scum.
Now he rose from his bent posture, tossed the scum upon the ground, and
with the perforated gourd in his hand turned and looked at his wife.
Augusta had dropped her apron and chips, and stood with folded arms
across her breast, her face wearing an expression of exasperated
expectancy.

The Grinnell boys were humbled and abashed. The wicked scion of the
Purdee house, joying to note how true his shaft had sped, was again
fitting his bow.

"An' ez bald-headed ez the mounting."

The baby had a big precedent, but although no peculiar shame attaches to
the bare pinnacle of the summit, she--despite the difference in size and
age--was expected to show up more fully furnished, and in keeping with
the rule of humanity and the gentilities of life.

No teeth, no hair, no sign of any: the fact that she was so backward
was a sore point with all the family. Job Grinnell suddenly dropped the
perforated gourd, and started down toward the fence. The acrimony of the
old feud was as a trait bred in the bone. Such hatred a