didn't mean to be bad." And Eliza presented the case of her small
sister with hopelessness in every tone.

"Well, Susie," said Mother Mayberry, "don't you feel kind to her yet?"
There was a note of hope in Mother's voice that silenced all the wails,
and they all fixed large and expectant eyes upon this friend who never
failed them. By this time the Deacon had joined the group and his
gentle old eyes were also fixed on Mother Mayberry's face, with the
same confident hope that the children's expressed.

"I've done been kind to her," sniffed the culprit. "I let her cut all
my finger-nails and wash my ears and never said a word. She have been
working on me all afternoon and it hurt."

"Susie," said Mother Mayberry, "you can go over to the cross-roads and
see that circus with the Deacon. They can't no little girl do better
than that, and your Maw just told you to stay until you learned that
lesson. You are let out! Now, what did you do, Bud?"

"I slid on the lean-to and tored all the back of my britches out. She
couldn't stop to mend 'em and she said I could just stay front ways to
folks until she come home, and they shouldn't nobody mend 'em for me."
Bud choked with grief and mortification and edged back as little Bettie
Pratt started in his direction on an investigating tour.

"Well course, Bud," said Mother with judicial eye, "you can't take them
britches off." She paused and looked at him thoughtfully.

"I ain't a-going a step without him," reiterated the loyal Eliza, and
the rest of the children's faces fell.

"Too bad," murmured the Deacon, and Miss Wingate could see that his
distress at the plight of young Bud was as genuine as that of any of
the rest.

"But," began Mother Mayberry slowly, having in the last second weighed
the matter and made a decision, "your mother ain't said you couldn't go
outen the yard and she ain't said I couldn't wrap you up in one of my
kitchen aprons. That wouldn't be the same as changing the britches. She
didn't know about this circus and if she was here you all know she
woulder done as I asked her to do about Bud, so he ain't a-disobeying
her and I ain't neither, Run get the apron hanging behind the door,
Susie, and I'll fix him."

"Sister Mayberry," said the Deacon with a delighted smile in his kind
eyes, but a twinkle in their corners, "your decision involves the
interpretation of both the letter and the spirit of the law. I am glad
it, in this case, rested with you."

"Well