long drive," and the children ate it with far more relish than home
bread-and-milk was ever eaten.

"Now I'm doubting"" said Patrick, standing with his back to the cooking-stove
and with a corn-cob pipe in his mouth, "if it's the style to have
bread-and-milk at 'At Homes' in the city."

"Patrick," answered Tattine seriously, "we do not want this to be a city 'At
Home.' I don't care for them at all. Everybody stays for just a little while,
and everybody talks at once, and as loudly as they can, and at some of them
they only have tea and a little cake or something like that to eat," and
Tattine glanced at the kitchen-table over by the window with a smile and a
shake of the head, as though very much better pleased with what she saw there.
A pair of chickens lay ready for broiling on a blue china platter. Several
ears of corn were husked ready for the pot they were to be boiled in. A plate
of cold potatoes looked as though waiting for the frying-pan, and from the
depths of a glass fruit-dish a beautiful pile of Fall-pippins towered up to a
huge red apple at the top.

"Indade, thin, but we'll do our best," said Mrs. Kirk, "to make it as
different from what you be calling a city 'At Home' as possible, and now
suppose you let Patrick take you over our bit of a farm, and see what you
foind to interest you, and I'm going wid yer, while ye have a look at my
geese, for there's not the loike of my geese at any of the big gentlemin's
farms within tin miles of us."

And so, nothing loth, the little party filed out of the house, and after all
hands had assisted in unharnessing Barney and tying him into his stall, with a
manger-full of sweet, crisp hay for his dinner, they followed Mrs. Kirk's lead
to the little pond at the foot of the apple-orchard. And then what did they