supper cooking--barbecue, birdies and the hot potato! Milly and Billy Bob
are going and Polly and that Boston lad of yours, Caroline--yours if you
can hold him, which I don't think you can. And Mrs. Matilda says--"

"Stop," demanded Phoebe, "and tell us what you are talking about, David."

"I'm surprised at you, Phoebe, for being so dense," answered David with a
delighted grin at having created a flurry. "Didn't you hear me tell
Caroline Darrah Brown at least a week ago that possums and persimmons are
ripe and that the first night after a rain and a fog we would all
turn out and show her how to shake down a few? The whole glad push is
going. Mrs. Matilda and I decided it an hour ago while you were still
asleep. I've telephoned everybody--possums and persimmons wait for no
man."

"How perfectly delightful," said Caroline with eyes agleam with
enthusiasm. "Can everybody go?" David had failed to mention Andrew Sevier
in his enumeration, an omission that she had instantly caught.

"Yes," answered David, "everybody that had engagements we asked the
engagement to go, too. Even Andy is going to cut the poems for the lark!
Thuse up a little, Phoebe, please--give us the smile! I'm backing you to
shake down ten possums against anybody's possible five."

"I don't think that I can go," answered Phoebe quietly. "Mrs. Cherry has
the president of the Federation of Women's Clubs staying with her and I'm
going to dine there to-night to discuss the suffrage platform." There was
a cool note in Phoebe's voice and a sudden seriousness had come into her
expression.