off same as the logs do when they get into quiet, sunny water.'"

Rose blushed and laughed, and drove up the hill to Mite Shapley's, where she
put up the horse and waited till the men had eaten their luncheon. The drivers
slept and had breakfast and supper at the Billings house, a mile down-river,
but for several years Mrs. Wiley had furnished the noon meal, sending it down
piping hot on the stroke of twelve. The boys always said that up or down the
whole length of the Saco there was no such cooking as the Wileys', and much of
this praise was earned by Rose's serving. It was the old grandmother who
burnished the tin plates and dippers till they looked like silver;
for--crotchety and sharp-tongued as she was--she never allowed Rose to spoil
her hands with soft soap and sand: but it was Rose who planned and packed,
Rose who hemmed squares of old white table-cloths and sheets to line the
baskets and keep things daintily separate, Rose, also, whose tarts and cakes
were the pride and admiration of church sociables and sewing societies.

Where could such smoking pots of beans be found? A murmur of ecstatic approval
ran through the crowd when the covers were removed. Pieces of sweet home-fed
pork glistened like varnished mahogany on the top of the beans, and underneath
were such deeps of fragrant juice as come only from slow fires and long, quiet
hours in brick ovens. Who else could steam and bake such mealy loaves of brown
bread, brown as plum-pudding, yet with no suspicion of sogginess? Who such
soda biscuits, big, feathery, tasting of cream, and hardly needing butter? And
green-apple pies! Could such candied lower crusts be found elsewhere, or more
delectable filling? Or such rich, nutty doughnuts?--doughnuts that had spurned
the hot fat which is the ruin of so many, and risen from its waves like
golden-brown Venuses.

"By the great seleckmen!" ejaculated Jed Towle, as he swallowed his fourth,
"I'd like to hev a wife, two daughters, and four sisters like them Wileys, and