ether again?"
"So you think there is nothing Nature can't do?" Dr. Page mused, with
apparent irrelevance. "How about the sun-dial itself?"
"Oh, Nature will attend to that, too."
"She will, will she? And in what particular tin cracker-box should you
look for it to come up?"
"It wouldn't be polite to say," Olivia declared, looking with
unmistakable significance straight into her father's face.
"Saucebox!" he chuckled.
And when, in early June, the brass disk of the sun-dial had begun its
record of happy hours, and still Olivia toiled with unabated zeal at
her garden, the rose of health blooming ever brighter in her face, a
great sense of satisfaction and approval took possession of her
father's mind. But he only remarked, in a casual manner, as they sat
together on the white bench one fragrant sunset hour:
"After all, I'm not sure but Nature's biggest miracle has been
performed in the saucebox."
And Olivia, smiling softly, answered: "I told you, you know, that
there isn't any place too unlikely for Nature to set things going
in!"
BAGGING A GRANDFATHER
"I'll warrant that 'he, she, or it' will come! Di usually bags her
game!"
The speaker, Mr. Thomas Crosby, must have had implicit faith in his
daughter's prowess to venture such a confident assertion as that, for
he was quite in the dark as to who "he, she, or it" might be.
It was a cozy November evening, when open fires and friendly
drop-lights are in order, and the three grown-folks of the family were
enjoying these luxuries. Mr. Crosby was supposed to be reading his
paper, but he had a sociable way of letting fall an occasional item of
interest, or of letting fall the paper itself, at the first hint of
interest in the remarks of his wife and daughter.
Only within a very short time had there been three grown-folks in the
family, unless, indeed, we count Rollo, the Gordon setter, who had
attained his majority years ago. Di, who was but just turned sixteen,
really did not like to remember how very recently she had been sent to
bed at eight o'clock!
Could Mr. Crosby have guessed the scheme which was occupying the
active brain of the young person engaged in embroidering harmless
bachelor's buttons upon a linen centrepiece, he would have been very
much astonished,--whether pleasurably or otherwise, events alone must
show. And since events had been taken in hand by Di the revelation was
not likely to be long delayed.
The incident which h
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