-SADDLE.

Just then Mrs. Meadows smoothed out her apron and rose from her chair.

"I smell dinner," she said, "and it smells like it is on the table.
Let's go in and get rid of it."

She led the way, and the children followed. The dinner was nothing
extra,--just a plain, every-day, country dinner, with plenty of
pot-liquor and dumplings; but the children were hungry, and they made
short work of all that was placed before them. Drusilla waited on the
table, as she did at home, but she didn't go close to Mr. Rabbit. She
held out the dishes at arm's length when she offered him anything, and
once she came very near dropping a plate when he suddenly flapped his
big ear on his nose to drive off a fly.

Mrs. Meadows was very kind to the children, but when once the edge was
taken off their appetite they began to get uneasy again. There were a
thousand questions they might have asked, but they had been told
never to ask questions in company. Mr. Thimblefinger, who had a keen
eye for such things, noticed that they were beginning to get glum and
dissatisfied, and so he said with a laugh:--

"I've often heard in my travels of children who talked too much, but
these don't talk at all."

"Oh, they'll soon get over that," Mrs. Meadows remarked. "Everything
is so strange here, they don't know what to make of it. When I was a
little bit of a thing my ma used to take me to quiltings, and I know
it took me the longest kind of a time to get used to the strangers and
all."

"This isn't a quilting," said Sweetest Susan, with a sigh; "I wish it
was."

"I don't!" exclaimed Buster John plumply.

"Once when I was listening through a keyhole," said Mr. Thimblefinger,
placing his tiny knife and fork crosswise on his plate, "I heard a
story about a Talking-Saddle."

"Tell it! tell it!" cried Buster John and Sweetest Susan.

"I suppose you have no pie to-day?" said Mr. Rabbit.

[Illustration: DRUSILLA WAITING ON MR. RABBIT]

"Oh, yes," said Mrs. Meadows, "we'll have the pie and the story,
too."

Mr. Thimblefinger smacked his lips and winked his eye in such comical
fashion that the children laughed heartily, but they didn't forget the
story.

"I don't know that I can remember the best of it," said Mr.
Thimblefinger. "The wind was blowing and the keyhole was trying to
learn how to whistle, and I may have missed some of the story. But it
was such a queer one, and I was listening so closely, that I came very
near falling off the d