and barking and doing their canine best to express their
happiness at seeing "home" once more. "Home" it was to the lad, also, as
he felt it now; tugging stoutly upon the chains of the Great Danes, lest
in their exuberant joy they should break away from him to gambol in the
geranium beds that glorified the lawn.

Around from the vine-draped back porch came old Ephraim and Dinah; Hans
and Griselda Roemer, who greeted Jim in their hearty German fashion, as
if he were their own son come home. And bless me! If out of that great
kitchen didn't issue Ma Babcock herself, and all her daughters a-trail
behind!

"Why, Mrs. Babcock, you here? Surely, this is indeed a surprise!" cried
Jim, releasing the Danes to Ephraim's care and clasping the hands she
extended toward him.

"Well, then, it needn't be. Me and Mis' Calvert has been neighbors this
long while, years indeed. So what more natural than, when all the
company was comin' and help so hard to get--capable help, you
know--up-mounting, but that old Seth, the farrier, should write me the
invite to come and take a hold of things and see that they was the
rightest kind of right for such grand doings? So I come; and I had to
fetch the girls along, 'cause I never do leave them out of any the good
times I have myself. Baretta stop holdin' onto my skirt! You'll pull it
clean out the gathers and it's just fresh-washed and ironed. Claretta,
will you never, never quit suckin' your thumb? Make your manners pretty,
darlin', to this fine gentleman! Who, after all said, is nobody but Jim
Barlow, makin' the most of his chance. Why, Alfy! You bashful? Come and
shake hands with your old friend and don't act simple!"

So Alfaretta came forward, a new modesty upon her and a change for the
better in her whole appearance, even after so short a time as this one
summer. And both happening to recall how she had greeted him when first
this "hero" was presented to her, they laughed and the "ice" which had
formed over their friendship during separation speedily melted.

"Pa Babcock, you're askin' for? Oh, he's well, that kind don't never
have nothing the matter with their health, though they're always
thinking they have. He stopped with his sister till she got tired and
shook him. Then he went to Chicago, where there's such a lot of silly
Nanarchists like himself, and there he's stayed. I hope will stay, too,
till the children get growed. He seems to be makin' his salt, some kind
of livin', and he's