e before. "My, but that is a gorgeous
bird you have!"

"She's a right good hen, but she's a mongrel. There isn't a single
thoroughbred Rhode Island Red hereabouts. I aim to get a setting of pure
eggs for Polly this spring if I sell my hawgs as good as Mr. Adam perdicks
I will. I brought her as a present to you, Miss Nancy, 'cause she's been
a-brooding about two days, and if you get together a setting of eggs the
last of next week she'll hatch 'em all. She carried three broods last
year."

"Oh, Mr. Beesley, how lovely of you," I exclaimed, as I reached out my arms
for the gorgeous old red ally. "I like her better than any present I ever
had in all my life!" This I said before the face of Matthew Berry, with a
complete loss of memory of all of the wonderful things he had been giving
me from my debut bouquet of white orchids and violets to the tiny scarab
from the robe of an Egyptian princess that I wore in the clasp of my
platinum wrist-watch.

"Well, I should say!" Matthew exclaimed, with not a thought of the
comparison in his generous mind. "Did you know that your sister, Miss
Polly, and I are going into the Rhode Island Red business together? We were
just deciding the details as you came around the house. What do you say to
coming in? How many shall I buy? Say, about fifty hens and half a dozen
cocks? Let's start big while we are about it. If Ann is going to make
three thousand dollars a year off one rooster and ten hens, we can make
fifteen off of five times as many."

"Yes, and we can bust the business all to pieces with too much stock,"
answered the brother Corn-tassel. "Miss Nancy has got real horse-sense
starting small, and chicken-sense too."

"I stand corrected," answered Matthew. "I see that a flyer cannot be taken
in chickens any higher than a hen can fly. I'm growing heady over this
business and must go back to town to set the wheels in motion. All of you
ride down to the gate with me and find out what the word jolt means."

Then after housing the Bird family in the feed-room with their guest, all
happily at scratch in the hay for the wheat and corn thrown to them by the
Corn-tassels while Matthew and I went in to bid the paternal twins good-by,
we all rode merrily and joltily down the long avenue under the old elms to
the big gate at the square in Riverfield. In front of the
post-office-bank-grocery emporium we deposited the Corn-tassels, introduced
Matthew to Aunt Mary and Uncle Silas, with the most c