ecting to find them just as now.

However they started. Dorcas held the stem of the burdock leaf and
Sheba its tip. Being somewhat shorter than her sister, Sheba's end of
the burden slanted downwards. The grass was hummocky. Their steps did
not keep time very well. A fragment of Chloe's well-flavored
"stuffin'" slipped down upon Sheba's fat fingers and--right before she
knew it was in her mouth, yes, sir! Right before!

"Oh! Sheba! You'd oughtn't not to have did that!" reproved Dorcas,
severely. Then she stumbled over a brier. She had watched her sister
too closely to see where her own feet fell, and one little cluster of
grapes rolled to the ground.

"I guess that was 'cause I was lookin' for 'the mote in your eyes' 't
I got a 'beam' in mine so's I couldn't see right smart," observed this
Scripture-taught child, in keen self-reproach.

"Did you get a beam? I didn't. I can see real good. Say, Dorcas,
'twouldn't not do to give mamma grapes what have fell into dirty
grass, would it? Mamma hates dirt so much papa laughs hard about it.
And--and it isn't not nice to waste things. Mamma says 'waste not want
not.' I ain't wantin' them grapes but I can't waste 'em, either. Mamma
wouldn't like that. These ain't our kind of wild ones, we get in the
woods. These are real ones what grew on a vine."

They paused to regard the fallen fruit. How the sunlight tinted their
golden skins. They _must_ taste--Oh! how doo-licious they must taste!
As the elder, and therefore in authority, Dorcas stooped to lift the
amber fruit; and, losing hold of the burdock leaf sent the whole
dinner to the ground.

Then did consternation seize them. This was something dreadful. If
mamma hadn't been so terrible neat! If she'd only been willing to "eat
her peck of dirt," like papa said everybody had to do sometime, they
could pick it all up and squeeze it back, nice and tight on the big
green leaf, and hurry to her with it. But----

"Yes, sir! There is! A yellow wiggley kittenpillar just crawled out of
the way. S'posing he left one his hairs on that chicken? Just suppose?
Why, that might make mamma sick if she ate it! You wouldn't want to
make poor darling mamma sick, like the Geraldy boy, would you, Sheba
Stillwell? Would you?"

Poor little Sheba couldn't answer. She was in the throes of a great
temptation. She hadn't the strength of character of Saint Anne. She
didn't at all like that suggestion of a "kittenpillar's" hair and
yet--what was one ha