mix batter the way she does. But if _you_ like 'em, Henry--"

"Couldn't be beat, Abby," affirmed Mr. Daggett sturdily, as he
reached for his third cup of coffee.

The cook stove was only a few steps away, so the sizzle of the batter
as it expanded into generous disks on the smoking griddle did not
interrupt the conversation. Mrs. Daggett, in her blue and white
striped gingham, a pancake turner in one plump hand, smiled through
the odorous blue haze like a tutelary goddess. Mr. Daggett, in his
shirt-sleeves, his scant locks brushed carefully over his bald spot,
gazed at her with placid satisfaction. He was thoroughly accustomed
to having Abby wait upon his appetite.

"I got to get down to the store kind of early this morning, Abby," he
observed, frowning slightly at his empty plate.

"I'll have 'em for you in two shakes of a lamb's tail, papa," soothed
Mrs. Daggett, to whom the above remark had come to signify not merely
a statement of fact, but a gentle reprimand. "I know you like 'em
good and hot; and cold buckwheat cakes certainly is about th' meanest
vict'als.... There!"

And she transferred a neat pile of the delicate, crisp rounds from
the griddle to her husband's plate with a skill born of long
practice.

"About that furnitur'," remarked Mr. Daggett, gazing thoughtfully at
the golden stream of sweetness, stolen from leaf and branch of the
big sugar maples behind the house to supply the pewter syrup-jug he