'm just hankering for
the country."

"Then what's the matter--"

The suggestion on the tip of Amy's tongue never got any farther, for
Peggy, seemingly certain that it would prove inadequate, shook her head
with a vigor hardly to be expected from her general air of lassitude.

"No, Amy! I don't mean going to the park, or taking a trolley ride out
to one of the suburbs. What I want is the sure-enough country, without
any sidewalks, you know, and with roads that wind, and old hens clucking
around, and cow-bells tinkling off in the pastures, and oceans of
room--"

"And sunsets where the sun goes down behind green trees, instead of
peoples' houses," Ruth interrupted dreamily. "And birds singing like mad
to wake you up in the morning."

"Yes, and berries growing alongside the road, where you can help
yourself," broke in Amy with animation. "And apples and nuts lying
around under the trees, and green corn that melts in your mouth, and--"

"Not all at the same time, though." The correction came from Priscilla's
hammock. "You wouldn't find many nuts dropping from the trees at this
time of the year."

Before Amy could reply, the conversation was interrupted by the
appearance of the most universally popular visitor ever gracing Friendly
Terrace by his presence. He came often, without any danger of wearing
out his welcome. Every household watched for his arrival, and felt
injured if he passed without stopping. On Amy's porch four necks craned,
the better to view his advance, and four pairs of eyes were expectant.

"If there's anything for me," observed Peggy hopefully, "mother'll wave,
I know." But Mrs. Raymond, who sat sewing on her own porch, opened the
solitary letter the postman handed her, and proceeded to acquaint
herself with its contents in full view of the watchers on the other side
of the street.

"This must be Mother's Day," Amy exclaimed disapprovingly, when, a
moment later, she accepted from the letter-carrier's hand a fat blue
envelope directed to Mrs. Gibson Lassell. But, in spite of her rather
resentful tone, she scrambled to her feet, and carried the letter
through to the shaded back room where her mother lay on the couch, with
a glass of ice-tea beside her, devoting herself to the business of
keeping cool.

Some time passed before Amy's return. Priscilla's hammock barely stirred
and the rhythmic creak of Ruth's rocking-chair grew gradually less
frequent. Peggy, cuddling down among the cushions, let he