y on the stove fer two mortal
hours. I kin give ye that, an' smashed taters an' chicken gravy, an'
dried corn, an' hot corn-pone, an' currant jell, an' strawberry
preserves, an' my own cannin' o' peaches, an' pumpkin-pie an' coffee.
Will that do ye?" Would it _do_! _Would_ it do!!

As Aunt Margaret talked, the kitchen door swung wide, and the two men
were stricken speechless with astonishment. There, across from each
other at the kitchen table, sat the utterly selfish and traitorous
younger members of the rival houses of Ellsworth and Van Kamp, deep in
the joys of chicken, and mashed potatoes, and gravy, and hot
corn-pone, and all the other "fixings," laughing and chatting gaily
like chums of years' standing. They had seemingly just come to an
agreement about something or other, for Evelyn, waving the shorter end
of a broken wishbone, was vivaciously saying to Ralph:

"A bargain's a bargain, and I always stick to one I make."

A CALL

By Grace MacGowan Cooke (1863- )

[From _Harper's Magazine_, August, 1906. Copyright, 1906, by Harper &
Brothers. Republished by the author's permission.]

A boy in an unnaturally clean, country-laundered collar walked down a
long white road. He scuffed the dust up wantonly, for he wished to
veil the all-too-brilliant polish of his cowhide shoes. Also the
memory of the whiteness and slipperiness of his collar oppressed him.
He was fain to look like one accustomed to social diversions, a man
hurried from hall to hall of pleasure, without time between to change
collar or polish boot. He stooped and rubbed a crumb of earth on his
overfresh neck-linen.

This did not long sustain his drooping spirit. He was mentally adrift
upon the _Hints and Helps to Young Men in Business and Social
Relations_, which had suggested to him his present enterprise, when
the appearance of a second youth, taller and broader than himself,
with a shock of light curling hair and a crop of freckles that
advertised a rich soil threw him a lifeline. He put his thumbs to his
lips and whistled in a peculiarly ear-splitting way. The two boys had
sat on the same bench at Sunday-school not three hours before; yet
what a change had come over the world for one of them since then!

"Hello! Where you goin', Ab?" asked the newcomer, gruffly.

"Callin'," replied the boy in the collar, laconically, but with
carefully averted gaze.

"On the girls?" inquired the other, awestruck. In Mount Pisgah you saw
the girls home