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never will be the least bit interested or pleased in anything, nor show that everything is n't just the way she expected it to be. You know there's

"L'AVING ME TO HALF BREAK MY NECK OVER THAT SQUAWKIN LITTLE DICKIE BIRD!

nothing more disagreeable than somebody who won't be surprised. We thought this time we surely would give her a turn, driving up that way in a hay-wagon, with our hands full of wild flowers, and Pete's cap running over with wild

strawberries he 'd picked for his father's supper; but Bridget hardly looked at us when she came out-only at the strawberries, and then she sniffed. "That 'll be all you get fer ye'r supper," she said; "I ain't had no time to cook, you-all running away to pleasure yourselves in the woods, and l'aving me to half break my neck over that squawkin' little Dickie bird!"

Remember there were now in the hay-wagon, Pete, and Sallie, and Nora, and the farmer, and me-the baby was still asleep, and he could n't talk anyhow. Well, as true as true, it sounded as though just one person with a monstrous big voice shouted out, "DICK!!!" we all said it together so.

"Yes, Dick!" snapped Bridget, crossly. "Just after you-all went out, I heard him squallin'. Master Pete had lift the dure to th' cage open again, and th' little fool bird had flew out and got his feet tangled up in the net curtains. I had to climb on a step-ladder to git him down-me at my age-and the rheumatism in me knees something fierce!"

It was so still when she stopped talking, you could hear the little chink of the bits in the horses' mouths. Nobody said a word until I asked Nora, in a very queer-sounding voice, "But, Nora, I thought you looked out of the window and saw him fly into the crab-apple-tree?"

And Nora said (her voice was very queersounding, too, and she hung down her head): "Sure, now I mind me that th' windy was shut."

There was such a great noise back of me just then that I thought something had exploded. It was the farmer laughing. And then I laughed. And then Pete and Sallie did. And then all of a sudden, Nora threw back her head, and her laugh was the heartiest and jolliest of all. She had n't looked so cheerful since she landed.

Well, we laughed, and we laughed, and we laughed, and Bridget got crosser and crosser, because we could n't get our breaths enough to tell her the joke; and so, shouting and choking and gurgling, we unloaded ourselves, thanked the farmer, and said good-by. As far away as we

could see him down the street, we could make out that he was still doubling over and whacking his knee with his hand, and then holding his sides as though he certainly would fly to pieces.

We went into the house and had supperBridget had a beautiful supper ready. She always does, for all her talk-and we put the baby to bed.

Then Pete and Sallie and I had a serious talk on the dreadful dangers of being 'maginative, and to fix it in our minds, I wrote all this down, and read it to them to see if it was right. They

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