' go off some where if 't was a good day.
I've been promisin' for a good while I'd take 'em to Topham Corners;
they've never been there since they was very small."

"I believe you want a good time yourself. You ain't never got over
bein' a boy." Mrs. Hilton seemed much amused. "There, go if you want
to an' take 'em; they've got their summer hats an' new dresses. I
don't know o' nothin' that stands in the way. I should sense it better
if there was a circus or anythin' to go to. Why don't you wait an' let
the girls pick 'em some strawberries or nice ros' berries, and then
they could take an' sell 'em to the stores?"

John Hilton reflected deeply. "I should like to get me some good
yellow-turnip seed to plant late. I ain't more 'n satisfied with what
I've been gettin' o' late years o' Ira Speed. An' I'm goin' to provide
me with a good hoe; mine's gettin' wore out an' all shackly. I can't
seem to fix it good."

"Them's excuses," observed Mrs. Hilton, with friendly tolerance. "You
just cover up the hoe with somethin', if you get it--I would. Ira
Speed's so jealous he'll remember it of you this twenty year, your
goin' an' buy in' a new hoe o' anybody but him."

"I've always thought 't was a free country," said John Hilton soberly.
"I don't want to vex Ira neither; he favors us all he can in trade. 'T
is difficult for him to spare a cent, but he's as honest as daylight."

At this moment there was a sudden sound of young voices, and a pair of
young figures came out from the shadow of the woods into the
moonlighted open space. An old cock crowed loudly from his perch in
the shed, as if he were a herald of royalty. The little girls were
hand in hand, and a brisk young dog capered about them as they came.

"Wa'n't it dark gittin' home through the woods this time o' night?"
asked the mother hastily, and not without reproach.

"I don't love to have you gone so late; mother an' me was timid about
ye, and you've kep' Mis' Becker's folks up, I expect," said their
father regretfully. "I don't want to have it said that my little girls
ain't got good manners."

"The teacher had a party," chirped Susan Ellen, the elder of the two
children. "Goin' home from school she asked the Grover boys, an' Mary
an' Sarah Speed. An' Mis' Becker was real pleasant to us: she passed
round some cake, an' handed us sap sugar on one of her best plates,
an' we played games an' sung some pieces too. Mis' Becker thought we
did real well. I can pick out