“My goodness,” she exclaimed, “I’m surprised at you.  Look at your clothes, every which way.  Margaret, do sit up.  And Sara—­you’ll be the death of me, with all my work to do yet, and everything.”

“How do you do, Mrs. Henry Stove,” she added, addressing a three-legged stool, “come right in and sit down.

“Terrible hot weather we’re having.  Worst I ever see.”

She moved busily about, humming a song to herself.  “I declare, it’s time you went to school, children,” she said finally, stopping to look at her family.

Without trouble, she became the school teacher.  Propping her three dolls more firmly against the wall, she took her stand directly in front of them.  “Do you know your lessons, children?” she asked.  Then she squeaked back to herself, “Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, then, Margaret, what’s the best cow for butter?”

Mr. Jeminy began to laugh.  But almost at once he became serious and confused.  For it occurred to him that he did not know what cow was best for butter.  “This child,” he thought, “who cannot tell me why it is necessary to take two apples from four apples, is nevertheless able to distinguish between one cow and another.  She is wiser than I am.”

He stood gazing thoughtfully at Juliet, and smiling.  The sun of late afternoon, already about to sink in the west, was shining through the window, covered with dust and cobwebs.  And Mr. Jeminy, watching the dust dancing in the sun, thought to himself:  “I should like to stay here; it is peaceful and friendly.  I should like to help Mrs. Wicket plant her little garden in the spring, and plow it under in the autumn.  Now it is growing late and I must go home again.”

Juliet had tired of her play.  “Tell me a story,” she said.  “Tell me about the war, Mr. Jeminy.  Tell me about Noel Ploughman.”

But Mr. Jeminy shook his head.  “No,” he said, “it is time to drive your mother’s cow home from the fields.  Some other day I will tell you about the great wars of old, fought for no other reason than glory and empire, which disappointed no one, except the vanquished.  But there is no time now.  Come; we will go for the cow together.”

Hand in hand they went down the road toward Mr. Crabbe’s field, where Mrs. Wicket rented pasturage for her cow.  The sun was sinking above the trees; and they heard, about them, in the fields, the silence of evening, the song of the crickets and cicadas.

They found the cows gathered at the pasture bars, with sweet, misty breath, their bells clashing faintly as they moved.  “Go ’long,” cried Juliet, switching her little rod, to single out her own.  And to the patter of hoofs and the tonkle of bells, they started home again.

Mrs. Wicket, in the kitchen, watched them from her window, in the clear, fading light.  “How good he is,” she thought.  And she turned, with a smile and a sigh, to set the table for Juliet’s supper.