Barney the donkey was harnessed, and Tattine sat in the little donkey-cart waiting, and as she waited she was saying aloud, “What, Grandma Luty? Yes, Grandma Luty. No, Grandma Luty. What did you say, Grandma Luty?” and this she said in the most polite little tone imaginable. Meantime Rudolph and Mabel, discovering that Tattine did not see them, came stealing along under cover of the apple-trees.

“Whatever is Tattine doing, talking to herself like that?” whispered Mabel, and then they came near enough to hear what she was saying.

“She’s out of her head,” said Rudolph, when they had listened some moments, and then Tattine turned round and saw them.

“No, I’m not out of my head at all,” she laughed; “I was just practicing a little while I waited for you.”

“Practicing your GRANDMOTHER,” which as you have observed was a pet expression with Rudolph, whenever he wished to intimate that he considered your remarks to be simply absurd.

“Yes, that’s exactly it,” Tattine answered good-naturedly. “I am practicing my Grandmother. Grandma Luty, that’s Mamma’s mother, has come to make us a visit, and Mamma has discovered that I’m not very polite to old people. Children used to be taught, you know, to say, ‘Yes’m,’ and ‘Yes, sir,’ but now that is not considered nice at all, and you must always say the name of the person you are speaking to, especially if they are older people, to whom you ought to be respectful,” and Tattine sounded quite like a little grandmother herself as she talked.

“Yes, we know, and it’s an awful bother,” sighed Rudolph. “We’re fairly nagged about it, Mabel and I, but Mother says she’s going to keep it up until we always do it. Perhaps we would get on faster if we practised by ourselves as you do, but really, Tattine, it did sound as though you were out of your head, to hear you saying all those sentences over to yourself.”

While the children were having this little talk about politeness, Rudolph and Mabel had climbed into the wagon, and the donkey, acting upon a suggestion from Tattine’s whip, had started down the roadway. The trio were off for Patrick’s, for this was to be the day of the Kirks’ “At Home,” and, dressed in kis Sunday-best, Patrick that very minute was waiting at his door to receive them.

Full two miles lay ahead of the children, and though Barney fortunately seemed to be in the mood for doing his best, Patrick would still have a full half-hour to wait. At last the donkey-cart drew up at the Kirks’ door and two happy old people welcomed three happy little people into their comfortable little home. It would take another book, the size of this one, to tell you all the doings of that August day. First they went into the house and laid their wraps on the white coverlid of the great high feather-bed in the little spare room, and then Mrs. Kirk sat them down to three little blue bowls of bread-and-milk, remarking, “shure you must be after being hungry from your long drive,” and the children ate it with far more relish than home bread-and-milk was ever eaten.

“Now I’m doubting,” said Patrick, standing with his back to the cooking-stove and with a corn-cob pipe in his mouth, “if it’s the style to have bread-and-milk at ‘At Homes’ in the city.”

“Patrick,” answered Tattine seriously, “we do not want this to be a city ‘At Home.’ I don’t care for them at all. Everybody stays for just a little while, and everybody talks at once, and as loudly as they can, and at some of them they only have tea and a little cake or something like that to eat,” and Tattine glanced at the kitchen-table over by the window with a smile and a shake of the head, as though very much better pleased with what she saw there. A pair of chickens lay ready for broiling on a blue china platter. Several ears of corn were husked ready for the pot they were to be boiled in. A plate of cold potatoes looked as though waiting for the frying-pan, and from the depths of a glass fruit-dish a beautiful pile of Fall-pippins towered up to a huge red apple at the top.

“Indade, thin, but we’ll do our best,” said Mrs. Kirk, “to make it as different from what you be calling a city ‘At Home’ as possible, and now suppose you let Patrick take you over our bit of a farm, and see what you foind to interest you, and I’m going wid yer, while ye have a look at my geese, for there’s not the loike of my geese at any of the big gentlemin’s farms within tin miles of us.”

And so, nothing loth, the little party filed out of the house, and after all hands had assisted in unharnessing Barney and tying him into his stall, with a manger-full of sweet, crisp hay for his dinner, they followed Mrs. Kirk’s lead to the little pond at the foot of the apple-orchard. And then what did they see! but a truly beautiful great flock of white geese. Some were sailing gracefully around the pond, some were pluming their snowy breasts on the shore beside it, and three, the finest of them all, and each with a bow of ribbon tied round its long neck, were confined within a little picket-fence apart from the others.

“Why, what beauties, Mrs. Kirk!” exclaimed Tattine, the minute she spied them, “and what are the ribbons for? Do they mean they have taken a prize at some show or other? And why do they each have a different color?”

“They mane,” said Mrs. Kirk proudly, standing with her hands upon her hips and her face fairly beaming, “they mane as how they’re to be presinted to you three children. The red is for Master Rudolph, the white is for Miss Mabel, and the blue is for you, Miss Tattine.”

“Oh, Mrs. Kirk!” the three children exclaimed, with delight, and Mabel added politely, “But do you really think you can spare them, Mrs. Kirk?”

“Why, of course she can! can’t you, Mrs. Kirk?” cut in Rudolph warmly, for the idea of relinquishing such a splendid gift was not for a moment to be thought of. “I wonder how we can get them home,” he added, by way of settling the matter.

“Indade, thin, and I have this foine crate ready to go right in the back of your cart,” and there, to be sure, was a fine sort of cage with a board top and bottom and laths at the sides, while other laths were lying ready to be nailed into place after the geese should have been stowed away within it. The children were simply wild over this addition to their separate little sets of live-stock, and although the whole day was delightful, there was all the while an almost impatient looking forward to the supreme moment when they should start for home with those beautiful geese in their keeping. And at last it came.

“I wonder if my goose will be a little lonely,” said Tattine, as they all stood about, watching Patrick nail on the laths.

“Faith and it will thin,” said Mrs. Kirk. “It never came to my moind that they wouldn’t all three be together. Here’s little Grey-wing to keep Blue-ribbon company,” and Mrs. Kirk seized one of the smaller geese that happened to be near her, and squeezed it into the cage through the small opening that was left.

“Well, if you can spare it, I think that is better, Mrs. Kirk, because everything has a companion over at our place. We have two cats, two pairs of puppies, two little bay horses, and two greys, and two everything, but as there’s only one of me I am friends with them all—”

“Bless your heart, but I’m glad you thought to mintion it,” and then Patrick and Mrs. Kirk gave each little extended hand a hearty shake, and the children—declaring over and over that “they had a lovely time and were so much obliged for the geese”—climbed into the cart and set off for home.

“I’d go the short cut by the ford,” advised Patrick; “it looks like we might get a shower by sunset.”

“Yes, I think we would better,” said Rudolph, glancing toward the clouds in the west Rudolph prided himself on his ability to forecast the weather, and was generally able to tell correctly when a shower was pretty sure to come and when it was likely to “go round.”

So Barney was coaxed into a good gait, which he was ready as a rule to take towards home, and the little ford by way of a farm-lane, and which saved a good mile on the road home, was soon reached. Barney knew the place well and, always enjoying it, picked his way carefully to the middle of the ford, and then he took it into his stubborn little head to stand stock still, and to plant his four hoofs firmly in the nice soft mud at the bottom of the stream.

“Go on,” urged Tattine; “Go on,” urged Mabel, and Rudolph applied his sapling whip with might and main, but all to no effect. Meantime some geese from a neighboring farm had come sailing out into the ford, to have a look at their friends in the crate, and the geese in the crate, wild to be out on the water with their comrades, craned their long necks far out between the laths, and set up a tremendous squawking. It was rather a comical situation, and the children laughed till their sides ached, but after a while it ceased to be so funny. The clouds were rolling up blacker, and there was an occasional flash of lightning far off in the distance, but Barney stood still obdurate and unmoved, simply revelling in the sensation of the cool water, running down-stream against his four little donkey-legs. At last Rudolph was at his wits’ end, for what did Tattine and Mabel do but commence to cry. Great drops of rain were falling now, and they COULD NOT BEAR THE THOUGHT of being mid-way in that stream with the storm breaking right above their heads, and when girls, little or big, young or old, cannot bear the thought of things they cry. It does not always help matters; it frequently makes them more difficult, but then again sometimes it does help a little, and this appeared to be one of those things, for when the girls’ crying put Rudolph to his wits’ end, he realized that there was just one thing left to try, and that was to jump overboard and try and pull Barney to land, since Barney would not pull him. So into the water he jumped, keeping the reins in his hand, and then, getting a little ahead of Barney, he began to walk and pull. Now fortunately, there is nothing like the force of example, which simply means that when Barney saw Rudolph walking and pulling he began to walk and pull too.

Meantime, while Patrick and his wife were thinking that the children had had plenty of time to reach home before the storm, there was great anxiety in the two homes where those three dear children lived. Patrick the coachman and Philip the groom had been sent with the wagonette by the main road to Patrick Kirk’s—Patrick to bring the children and Philip to take charge of Barney, but as the children were coming home, or rather trying to come home, by the ford, of course they missed them.

All the while the storm was growing in violence, and suddenly for about five minutes great hailstones came beating down till the lawn was fairly white with them, and the panes of glass in the green-house roof at Oakdene cracked and broke beneath them. “And those three blessed children are probably out in it all,” thought Tattine’s Mother, standing pale and trembling at her window, and watching the road which the wagonette would have to come. And then what did she see but Barney, trotting bravely up the hill, with the geese still craning their necks through the laths of the cage, but the reins dragging through the mud of the roadway, and with no children in the little cart. Close behind him came the wagonette, which Barney was cleverly managing to keep well ahead of, but Mrs. Gerald soon discovered that neither were the children in that either. In an instant she was down the stairs and out on the porch to meet Patrick at the door.

“It isn’t possible you have no word of the children?” she cried excitedly.

“Patrick Kirk says they started home by the ford in time to reach here an hour before the storm,” gasped Patrick, “but we came back by the ford ourselves and not a sign have we seen of them, till Barney ran out of the woods ahead of us five minutes ago.”

And then a dreadful thought flashed through her mind. Could it be possible they had been drowned in the ford? But that moment her eyes saw something that made her heart leap for joy, something that looked drowned enough, but wasn’t. Rudolph was running up the hill as fast as his soaking clothing would let him, and, reaching the door breathless enough, he sank down on the floor of the porch.

“Oh, Mrs. Gerald,” he said, as soon as he could catch his breath, “Mabel and Tattine are all right; they’re safe in the log play-house at the Cornwells’, but we’ve had an awful fright. Is Barney home? When the hail came I tied him to a tree and we ran into the log house, but he broke away the next minute and took to his heels and ran as fast as his legs could carry him. Barney’s an awful fraud, Mrs. Gerald.”

But Mrs. Gerald had no time just then to give heed to Barney’s misdoings. Seizing a wrap from the hall, she ordered Rudolph into the house and to bed, as quickly as he could be gotten there, sent Philip to Rudolph’s Mother with the word that the children were safe, and then started off in the wagonette to bring Mabel and Tattine home.

“Mamma,” said Tattine, snuggling her wet little self close to her Mother’s side in the carriage, “Rudolph was just splendid, the way he hauled Barney and us and the cart out of the water, but Mamma, I am done with Barney now too. He’s not to be trusted either.”

Mrs. Gerald thought of two or three things that might be urged in Barney’s favor, but it did not seem kind even to attempt to reason with two such tired and soaking little specimens, so she only said, “Well, Barney can never again be trusted in the ford, that’s one sure thing.”

“No, indeed,” said Mabel warmly; “I would not give fifty cents for him.”

“You can have him for nothing,” said Tattine, with a wan little smile; “after this he can never be trusted in anything.”