Marthy, serene and comfortable, sat in her rocking-chair before the
door in the shade of the house, with her feet resting luxuriously
upon the steps. Randy, who was playing with a pair of spurs on the
ground, looked up for a moment at his father and went on spinning the
rowels and singing a little song. Marthy turned her head lazily
against the back of the chair and considered the arrivals with
emotionless eyes. She held a book in her lap with her finger holding
the place.

Sam shook himself queerly, like a man coming out of a dream, and
slowly dismounted. He moistened his dry lips.

"I see you are still a-settin'," he said, "a-readin' of them billy-
by-dam yaller-back novils."

Sam had traveled round the circle and was himself again.





THE RUBBER PLANT'S STORY

We rubber plants form the connecting link between the vegetable
kingdom and the decorations of a Waldorf-Astoria scene in a Third
Avenue theatre. I haven't looked up our family tree, but I believe
we were raised by grafting a gum overshoe on to a 30-cent table
d'hote stalk of asparagus. You take a white bulldog with a Bourke
Cockran air of independence about him and a rubber plant and there
you have the fauna and flora of a flat. What the shamrock is to