So it came to pass that about an hour later our heroine was walking
beside the farmer on the way to the barnyard, talking merrily, and
swinging the basket which she was going to fill with eggs. "But how
shall I find them," she asked, "if the hens hide them away so
carefully?"

"Oh, you'll hear 'em scrattlin' round!" replied the farmer. "They're
gret fools, hens are,--greter than folks, as a rule; an' that is sayin'
a good deal."

They crossed the great sunny barn-yard, and paused at the barn-door,
while Hilda looked in with delight. A broad floor, big enough for a
ballroom, with towering walls of fragrant hay on either side reaching
up to the rafters; great doors open at the farther end, showing a snatch
of blue, radiant sky, and a lovely wood-road winding away into deep
thickets of birch and linden; dusty, golden, cobwebby sunbeams slanting
down through the little windows, and touching the tossed hay-piles into
gold; and in the middle, hanging by iron chains from the great central
beam, a swing, almost big enough for a giant,--such was the barn at
Hartley Farm; as pleasant a place, Hilda thought, as she had ever seen.

"Waal, Huldy, I'll leave ye heer," said the farmer; "ye kin find yer way
home, I reckon."

"Oh, yes, indeed!" said Hilda. "But stop one moment, please, Farmer
Hartley. I want to know--will you please--may I teach Bubble Chirk a
little?" The farmer gave a low whistle of surprise; but Hilda went on
eagerly: "I found him studying, this morning, while he was weeding the
garden,--oh! studying so hard, and yet not neglecting his work for a
minute. He seems a very bright boy, and it is a pity he should not have