es and pins, and tapes and
bodkins, a pound of butter, a pot of honey and one of marmalade, and
tin-tacks, string, and glue. But we could not get any ladies with
crosses, and the shirts and trousers were too expensive for us to dare
to risk it. Instead, we bought a head-stall for eighteenpence, because
how providential we should be to a farmer whose favourite horse had
escaped and he had nothing to catch it with; and three tin-openers, in
case of a distant farm subsisting entirely on tinned things, and the
only opener for miles lost down the well or something. We also bought
several other thoughtful and far-sighted things.

That night at supper we told Mrs. Bax we wanted to go out for the day.
She had hardly said anything that supper-time, and now she said--

"Where are you going? Teaching Sunday school?"

As it was Monday, we felt her poor brain was wandering--most likely for
want of quiet. And the room smelt of tobacco smoke, so we thought some
one had been to see her and perhaps been too noisy for her. So Oswald
said gently--

"No, we are not going to teach Sunday school."

Mrs. Bax sighed. Then she said--

"I am going out myself to-morrow--for the day."

"I hope it will not tire you too much," said Dora, with soft-voiced and
cautious politeness. "If you want anything bought we could do it for
you, with pleasure, and you could have a nice, quiet day at home."

"Thank you," said Mrs. Bax shortly; and we saw she would do what she
chose, whether it was really for her own good or not.

She started before we did next morning, and we were careful to be
mouse-quiet till the "Ship's" fly which contained her was out of
hearing. Then we had another yelling competition, and Noel won with that
new shriek of his that is like railway engines in distress; and then we
went and fetched Bates' donkey and cart and packed our bales in it and
started, some riding and some running behind.

Any faint distant traces of respectableness that were left to our
clothes were soon covered up by the dust of the road and by some of the
ginger-beer bursting through the violence of the cart, which had no
springs.

The first farm we stopped at the woman really did want some pins, for
though a very stupid person, she was making a pink blouse, and we
said--

"Do have some tape! You never know when you may want it."

"I believe in buttons," she said. "No strings for me, thank you."

But when Oswald said, "What about pudding-strings? You c