proposal of sentiment equals it. It
is the same way about the first egg she gathers with her own hands; the
sensation is indescribable.

"I'll do all the things he says do for you and the family, Mr. G. Bird, if
it kills me, as it probably will," I said with resolution as I drove a
last wobbly nail into the first nest, and took up the saw to again attack
the odds and ends of old plank I had collected on the barn floor. "If I can
make one nest in two hours, I can make two more in four more, and then I
will have time for the rest of the things," I assured myself as I again
looked at my wrist-watch, and began to saw with my knee holding the tough
old plank in place across a rickety box.

CHAPTER IV

It is beautiful how sometimes deserving courage is rewarded if it just goes
on deserving long enough. After about an hour's hand-to-saw bout with the
old plank I was just chewing through the last inch of the last of the four
sides of nest number two when I suddenly stopped and listened. Far away to
the front of the house I heard hot oaths being uttered by the engine in a
huge racing-machine with a powerful chug with which I was quite familiar.
While I listened, the motor in agony gave a snort as it bounded over some
kind of obstruction and in two seconds, as I stood saw in hand, with not
enough time to wipe the sweat of toil from my brow, the huge blue machine
swept around the corner of the house, brought up beside the family coach,
which was still standing in front of the barn, and Matthew flung himself
out of it and to my side.

"Holy smokers, Ann, but you look good in that get-up!" he exclaimed as he
regarded me with the delight with which a person might greet a friend or
relative whom he had long considered dead or lost. "Why, you look just as
if you had stepped right out of the 'Elite Review.' And the saw, too, makes
a good note of human interest."

"Well, it's chicken interest and not human, Matthew Berry," I said,
answering his levity with spirit. "And I'm sorry I can't be at home for
your amusement to-day, but my chickens are laying while I wait, and the
least I can do is to get these nests ready for 'em. You'll excuse me, won't
you, and go in to talk with father and Uncle Cradd?"

"They're not producing dividends already, are they, Ann? Why, you only
started the Consolidated Egg Co. yesterday!" exclaimed Matthew, with
insulting doubt of my veracity in his voice.

"Look there!" I said, as I pointed to my