been working on me all afternoon and it hurt."

"Susie," said Mother Mayberry, "you can go over to the cross-roads
and see that circus with the Deacon. They can't no little girl do
better than that, and your Maw just told you to stay until you
learned that lesson. You are let out! Now, what did you do, Bud?"

"I slid on the lean-to and tored all the back of my britches out.
She couldn't stop to mend 'em and she said I could just stay front
ways to folks until she come home, and they shouldn't nobody mend
'em for me." Bud choked with grief and mortification and edged back
as little Bettie Pratt started in his direction on an investigating
tour.

"Well course, Bud," said Mother with judicial eye, "you can't take
them britches off." She paused and looked at him thoughtfully.

"I ain't a-going a step without him," reiterated the loyal Eliza,
and the rest of the children's faces fell.

"Too bad," murmured the Deacon, and Miss Wingate could see that his
distress at the plight of young Bud was as genuine as that of any of
the rest.

"But," began Mother Mayberry slowly, having in the last second
weighed the matter and made a decision, "your mother ain't said you
couldn't go outen the yard and she ain't said I couldn't wrap you up
in one of my kitchen aprons. That wouldn't be the same as changing
the britches. She didn't know about this circus and if she was here
you all know she woulder done as I asked her to do about Bud, so he