the break of day, so as to sell the truck at the very top of the market to the earliest greengrocers.  I gave Bud coffee and bread and butter and drove the team down to the gate while he went ahead to open it.  I stood up while I drove, too, because Bud had not had room to put a seat in for himself and expected to stand up all the way to town.  Talk about Mordkin and Pavlova!  To stand up and drive a team hitched to a jolt-wagon over boulders and roots requires leg muscles!  I hope I will be able to restrain myself from driving the team into market some day, but I am not sure I can.  With the eggs and the “truck” Bud brought back sixteen dollars, eleven of which were mine.  I bought a peck of green peas for myself from myself and ate most of them for dinner by way of blowing in some of the money.  Then the chant on my heartstrings speeded me up to white-washing all the chicken paraphernalia on the place, and I dropped corn behind Rufus’ plow for a whole day, even if it was to produce food for the swine.  I went to bed at night literally on time with the chickens.  I could only stay awake to kneel and reach out the arms of prayer and enfold Pan to my heart for a very few seconds before I vaulted into the four-poster and tumbled into the depths of sleep.

My activities were not in any way limited by the stone walls that surround Elmnest, but they spread over entire Riverfield, which had very nearly quit the pursuit of agriculture and gone madly into a social adventure.  Everybody was getting ready for the trip into the capital city to answer the governor’s invitation, and clothing of every color, texture, and sex was being manufactured by the bolt.  For every garment manufactured I was sponsor.

“I sure am glad you have come down, Nancy,” said Mrs. Addcock, with almost a moan; “that Mamie there won’t let me turn up the hem of her dress without you, though I say what is a hem to a woman who has set in six pairs of sleeves since day before yesterday!”

“I want shoe-tops and Ma wants ankles,” sniffed Mamie Addcock.  “Polly Beesley wears shoe-tops and she’s seventeen and goes to the city to dance.  And Miss Bess’ and yours are shoe-tops, too.”

“Now you see what it is to raise a child to be led into sin and vanity,” said Mrs. Addcock, looking at me reproachfully from her seat upon the floor at the feet of the worldly Mamie.

“I’ll turn up the hem just right, Mrs. Addcock, while you get the collars on little Sammie’s and Willie’s shirts,” I said soothingly as I sank down beside her at Mamie’s feet.

“I had to cut Sammie’s shirt with a tail to tuck in, all on account of that Mr. Matthew Berry’s telling him that shirt and pants ought to do business together.  And there’s Willie’s jeans pants got to have pockets for the knife that Mr. Owen gave him.  I just can’t keep up with these city notions of my children with five of ’em and a weak back.”  As she grumbled Mrs. Addcock rose slowly from her lowly position to her feet.