eeing them running to overtake him, he strode back
across the fence, and seated himself on the top rail to wait for them.

"I forgot a most important thing," said Marty, panting for breath.
"Mamma says honorary members may attend the meetings."

"Maybe I hadn't better attend them," said Hiram with a quizzical look.
"I might want to vote."

"Oh, do you think you should?" asked Marty anxiously.

Hiram bit off a piece of straw and chewed it, slowly moving his head
from side to side, appearing to meditate profoundly, while the little
girls waited in suspense.

"Well," he said, after he had apparently thought the matter over, "I
suppose I can hold up from voting; and I reckon you can count on me to
come."

And come he did, the very next Sunday, appearing to take great interest
in the proceedings.

CHAPTER XVI.

A FLOWER SALE.

"Oh, look! Look over there!" exclaimed Marty. "What are those lovely
white flowers?"

"Wild clematis," replied Evaline.

"O Hiram, wont you please stop and let us get some?" pleaded Marty. "I'd
like so much to take some to mamma."

Hiram was obliged to go to Black's Mills on an errand that morning, and
Marty and Evaline had been allowed to go with him for the ride.
Returning he had driven around by another road, as he said one of the
horses had lost a shoe, and this road, though longer, was less stony,
and therefore easier for the horse than the other. Besides it would take
them by McKay's blacksmith-shop, where he could get the horse shod.

It was when going through a valley, which the country folks called "the
bottom," that they saw the clematis. It was growing in the greatest
profusion in the meadows and the woods on both sides of the road,
rambling over bushes, rocks, fences, everything, with its great starry
clusters of white blossoms.

"I don't think you had better go after any," said Hiram in reply to
Marty's request. "Them low places are muddy after the rain yesterday,
and your ma might be angry if you was to go home with your shoes all
muddied. Besides, there _may_ be snakes under them bushes."

"Snakes! Oh, dear!" said Marty with a shudder. "But I should like some
of those flowers for mamma."

"Well," said Hiram, reining in the horses, "if you promise to sit still
in the wagon and not be up to any of your tricks of climbing in and out,
I'll get you some."

"Oh, thank you ever so much! I'll sit as still as a mouse. But then I
shouldn't like the snakes to bite you