Then as Bud Corn-tassel had arrived to begin to hitch up the moth-eaten steeds to the ark, I ascended to my room to shed my farmer smocks, for the first time since my incarnation into them, and attire myself for the world again.  The only garb of fashion I possessed, having sold myself out completely on my retirement, was the very stylish, dull-blue tailor suit in which I had traveled out the Riverfield ribbon almost three months before.  But as that had been mid-February, it was of spring manufacture, and I supposed would still be able to hold its own.

“It’s perfectly beautiful, but it feels tight and hampering,” I said as I descended to enter the coach Bud had driven around to the front door.

“Will you give me a guarantee that you aren’t just a dream lady I’ll lose again in the city, Miss Nancy?” asked Bud, as he handed me into the Grandmother Craddock coach with great ceremony.  Gale Beacon couldn’t have done any better on such short notice.

“I’ll be in smocks at feeding-time in the morning, Bud, just as you will be in overalls,” I answered laughingly.

“My, but you are a sight!” said Mrs. Tillett, as she handed up Baby Tillett to me, with such a beaming countenance that I knew she meant a complimentary construction to be placed upon her words.  “Now, just take up them little girls and set ’em down easy, Mr. Bud, on account of their ruffles, and ram the boys in between to hold ’em steady.  Now, boys, if you muss up the girls I’ll make every one of you wear your shoes all day to-morrow to teach you manners.  Go on, Mr. Bud.”

Thus nicely packed away, we started on down the Riverfield ribbon at the head of the procession, followed by Uncle Silas driving Aunt Mary’s rockaway, with his beautiful, dappled, shining, gray mules hitched to it, and beside him sat Mrs. Addcock in serene confidence in being driven by a man who could drive a bank and a post-office and a grocery.  Mamie and Gertie Spain were spread out carefully on the back seat, with only one small masculine Spain for a wedge.  The Buford buggy, all spick and span from its first spring washing and polishing, came next, with Mr. and Mrs. Buford cuddling together on the narrow seat.  They were a bride and groom of very little over a year’s standing, and the blue-blanketed bundle that the bride carried in her arms was no reason, in Mr. Buford’s mind, why he shouldn’t drive with one hand while he held a steadying and affectionate arm around them both.  Buford Junior was less than a month old, but why shouldn’t he begin to adventure out in the big world?  Parson and Mrs. Henderson came next, he with snow-white flowing beard, and she, beside him, in a gray bonnet with a pink rose, while beside her sat his mother, Granny Henderson, now past eighty, but with a purple pansy nestled in her waterwaves.