ey
flared with excitement when he paused for breath before he unfolded
his tale of the adventure from which he had just arrived.

"Guess what crawl I have founded now, Roxy?" he demanded with
confidence that sympathy would be extended him over his good-fortune.

"I can't guess, Lovey, but please don't let it out," answered Roxanne
with the expected sympathy slightly tinged with entreaty in her voice.
I moved down one step so as to be nearer the capture, for Lovelace
Peyton's enthusiasm was contagious.

"It's a chicken sk-snake," he proclaimed proudly; and while both
Roxanne and I tucked our feet up under our skirts and squealed, he
drew with triumph a very fat, red fishing-worm out of the can and
displayed it, hanging across one of his chubby fingers. "It's a lovely
chicken-eating sk-snake," he said with breathless admiration.

"Y-e-s," I said doubtfully. "But it couldn't eat a chicken very well,
could it, Lovelace Peyton?" I asked politely, with my doubts of the
helpless red string hanging on his finger well under control. Roxanne
had gone back to her darning with relief plainly written all over her
face.

"This sk-snake could eat up five chickens or maybe more if you give
him time," defended his captor warmly.

"It--it looks rather small to be so savage, Lovey," argued Roxanne
mildly as she went on darning.

"It's sick some--wait till I put it in pepper tea," said Lovelace
Peyton as he lifted the worm.

"Ask Uncle Pomp what he thinks," advised Roxanne, hoping to get rid of
the squirm.

"I bet Uncle Pomp will be skeered to death of him," answered the proud
hunter as he took his departure around the house.

"Oh," sighed Roxy, "some day he will find a real snake and then what
will I do?"

"That is just what I was talking about, Roxanne," I said, returning to
my subject, which is the way my slow, methodical mind works in direct
contrast to Roxanne's way of forgetting one thing because of
enthusiastic interest in the next. "I don't see how you attend to all
of this, this--" I paused to find a name for Roxanne's tumultuous
household.

"Menagerie," Roxanne suggested, with a laugh that floated out over the
bed of ragged red chrysanthemums as sweet and clear as the note of the
cardinal in the tall elm by the gate.

"It's how you get your lessons and stay high up in your class I don't
understand," I answered, still using my compliment tactics. "I've only
known you less than a month, so it might be just luck th