ak to your father this
afternoon."

"Oh, I don't know, Mrs. Boyle. I hardly think I ought."

"Hoots, lassie! Come away, then, into the milk-house."

Back among the overhanging willows stood the little whitewashed log
milkhouse, built over a little brook that gurgled clear and cool over
the gravelly floor.

"What a lovely place," said Margaret, stepping along the foot stones.

"Ay, it's clean and sweet," said Mrs. Boyle. "And that is what you most
need with the milk and butter."

She took up an earthen jar from the gravelly bed and filled the girl's
pail with buttermilk.

"Thank you, Mrs. Boyle. And now for that recipe for the scones."

"Och, yes!" said Mrs. Boyle. "There's no recipe at all. It is just this
way--" And she elucidated the mysteries of sconemaking.

"But they will not taste a bit like yours, I'm sure," cried Margaret, in
despair.

"Never you fear, lassie. You hurry away home now and get your dinner
past, and we will call for you on our way."

"Here, lassie," she cried, "your father will like this. It is only
churned th' day." She rolled a pat of butter in a clean linen cloth,
laid it between two rhubarb leaves and set it in a small basket.

"Good-bye," said the girl as she kissed the dark cheek. "You're far too
kind to me."

"Poor lassie, poor lassie, I would I could be kinder. It's a good girl
you are, and a brave one."

"Not very brave, I fear," replied the girl, as she quickly turned away
and ran up the hill and out of sight.

"Poor motherless lassie," said Mrs. Boyle, looking after her with loving
eyes; "it's a heavy care she has, and the minister, poor man, he can't
see it. Well, well, she has the promise."

III

THE RAISING

The building of a bank-barn was a watershed in farm chronology. Toward
that event or from it the years took their flight. For many summers the
big boulders were gathered from the fields and piled in a long heap at
the bottom of the lane on their way to their ultimate destination, the
foundation of the bank-barn. During the winter, previous the "timber was
got out." From the forest trees, maple, beech or elm--for the pine was
long since gone--the main sills, the plates, the posts and cross-beams
were squared and hauled to the site of the new barn. Hither also the
sand from the pit at the big hill, and the stone from the heap at the
bottom of the lane, were drawn. And before the snow had quite gone
the lighter lumber--flooring, scantling, sheeting and