ill we get past the gate.... He
didn't come out, so p'raps he is dead or gone a-visiting.... There's
that 'specially lazy cow that's always lying down in the Buxtons'
field.... I don't b'lieve she's moved since we came away.... Do you
s'pose she stands up to be milked, Mardie? There's the old bridge over
the brook, just the same, only the woodbine's red.... There's ...
There's ... Oh, Mardie, look, look!... I do b'lieve it's our Jacky!"

Sue flew over the ground like a swallow, calling "Jack-y! Jack-y! it's
me and Mardie come home!"

Jack extricated himself from his sister's strangling hug and settled his
collar. "I'm awful glad to see you, Sukey," he said, "but I'm getting
too big to be kissed. Besides, my pockets are full of angleworms and
fishhooks."

"Are you too big to be kissed even by mother?" called Susanna, hurrying
to her boy, who submitted to her embrace with better grace. "O Jack,
Jack! say you're glad to see mother! Say it, say it; I can't wait,
Jack!"

"Course I'm glad! why wouldn't I be? I tell you I'm tired of Aunt
Louisa, though she's easier than she was. Time and again I've packed my
lunch basket and started to run away, but I always made it a picnic and
went back again, thinking they'd make such a row over me."

"Aunt Louisa is always kind when you're obedient," Susanna urged.

"She ain't so stiff as she was. Ellen is real worried about her and
thinks she's losing her strength, she's so easy to get along with."

"How's ... father...?"

"Better'n he was."

"Hasn't he been well?"

"Not so very; always quiet and won't eat, nor play, nor anything. I'm
home with him since Sunday."

"What is the matter with your clothes?" asked Susanna, casting a
maternal eye over him while she pulled him down here and up there, with
anxious disapproving glances. "You look so patched, and wrinkled, and
grubby."

"Aunt Louisa and father make me keep my best to put on for you, if you
should come. I clean up and dress every afternoon at train time, only I
forgot to-day and came fishing."

"It's too cold to fish, sonny."

"It ain't too cold to fish, but it's too cold for 'em to bite,"
corrected Jack.

"Why were you expecting us just now?" asked Susanna. "I didn't write
because, because, I thought ... perhaps ... it would be better to
surprise you."

"Father's expecting you every day, not just this one," said Jack.

Susanna sank down on a stone at the end of the bridge, and leaning her
head against the ra