"Martin, do you want me to wash your face and hands and come go
visiting with me?" asked the singer lady, as she stood on the front
steps and watched Mother Mayberry depart in her old buggy on the way
to visit a patient over the Nob. A long, lonely afternoon was more
than she could face just now, and she felt certain that distraction,
if not amusement, could be found in a number of places along the
Road.

"Thank, ma'am, please," answered Martin Luther, who still clung to
the formula that he had found to be a perfectly good open sesame to
most of the pleasant things of life, when used as he knew how to use
it.

So, taking her rose-garden hat in one hand and Martin Luther's
chubby fist in the other, Miss Wingate started down Providence Road
for a series of afternoon calls, at the fashionable hour of one-
thirty. She was just passing by Mrs. Peavey's gate with no earthly
thought of going in when she beheld the disconsolate Buck stretched
full length on the grass under a tree, which was screened by a large
syringa bush from the front windows of the maternal residence. A hoe
rested languidly beside him, and it was a plain case of farm hookey.

"Oh, Miss Elinory," called his mother from the side steps, "did Mis'
Mayberry hear about that fire down in town that burned up two
firemen, a police and a woman?" At the sound of his mother's
strident voice, Buck curled up in a tight knot and with a despairing
glance rolled under the bush.

"I don't know, Mrs. Peavey, but I'll tell her," Miss Wingate called
back as she prepared to hasten on for fear Mrs. Peavey would come to