"Oh, my dear Mrs. Addcock, won't you and Mrs. Tillett please forgive me for
being so ignorant and help me do it to-day?" I pleaded as I picked up a
small Tillett, who was peeping soft wooing at me from where he balanced
himself on uncertain and chubby legs against his mother's skirts.

"Well, in this case there is just nothing else to do, but turn to on the
beds now, wrong end first, but next year you'll know," she answered me with
indulgent compromise in her voice. "And I guess we'll find some broom and
mop work yet to be done. Come on, Mrs. Tillett. I guess Nancy can mind the
baby all right while we work."

"Oh, he ain't no trouble now except he wants to find out all about the
world by tasting of it. Don't let him eat a worm or sech, and he'll be all
right," answered the beaming young mother of the toddler. "And, Miss Nancy,
I was jest going to tell you that I have got a nice pattern of a plain kind
of work dress if you would like to use it," she added as she pointedly did
not look at my peasant's smock that hung in such lovely long lines that I
found myself pausing much too often before one of the mirrors in the big
living-room to admire them. Mrs. Tillett's utility costume was of blue
checked gingham and had no lines at all except top and bottom, with a belt
in between. Both ladies wore huge gingham aprons, and I must say that they
looked like the utility branch of the feminine species while I may have
resembled the ornamental. But they were dear neighbors, and the Tillett
baby and I had a very busy and happy day with the Golden Bird and his busy
family while the two missionaries did over every bed in Elmnest, even
invading the living-room and shaking out the cushions of the old couch in
the very face of one of the charges of Xerxes' army. I put his babykins in
a big feed-basket in a nest of hay, and the two lamb twins came and licked
him every now and then by way of welcome into my barn nursery. The fine