had not asked
him to follow us. All she had set out to do was to see that he didn't
get married before he registered, and she was doing that to the best of
her ability. The rest was his affair.

It was six o'clock by that time, and Tish had had nothing to eat since
five in the morning, and none of us had had any luncheon. Although a
woman who thinks little or nothing of food, I found her, shortly
afterwards, in the pantry, looking into jars. There was nothing,
however, except some salt, a little baking powder and a package of dried
sage. But Aggie, going to an attic window to look for the policeman,
discovered about a quart of flour in a barrel up there, and scraping it
out, brought it down.

"I might bake some biscuits, Tish," she suggested. "I feel that I'll
have to have some nourishment. I'm so weak that my knees shake."

"Myrtle," Tish said abruptly, with that quick decision so characteristic
of her, "you might tell that worthless young man of yours to look in the
granary. Sometimes the Knowleses' hens come over here, and I daresay
they've eaten enough off the place to pay for the eggs."

But Myrtle, after a conference from the window, reported that Mr. Culver
had said he would get the eggs, if there were any, on condition that he
get his pro rata share of them.

"If there are ten eggs," she said, "he wants two. And if there is an odd
number he claims the odd one."

This irritated Tish, but at last she grudgingly consented. In a short
time, therefore, Mr. Culver knocked at the kitchen door.

"I am leaving," he said, "eleven eggs, eight of undoubted
respectability, two questionable, and one that I should advise opening
into a saucer first. Also some corn meal from the granary. And if you
will set out a pail and come after me if I am wounded, I shall go after
a cow that I see in yon sylvan vale."

His voice was strangely cheerful, but, indeed, the prospect of food had
cheered us all, although I could see that Tish was growing more and
more anxious, as time went on and no policeman appeared in the
Knowleses' machine. However, we worked busily. Myrtle, building a fire
and setting the table with the Biggses' dishes, and Aggie making
biscuits, without shortening, while Tish stirred the corn meal mush.

"Many a soldier in the trenches," she said, "would be grateful for such
a frugal meal. When one reflects that the total cost of mush and milk is
but a trifle----"

Here, however, we were interrupted by Mr. Culv