2 FOUR-FOOTED AMERICANS 



about pains in her bones for fully a week, took out 

 her best black bonnet trimmed with a big red rose, — 

 headgear that she only wore on great occasions, — 

 saying : — 



" Pears to me nuffin eber does ma reumatiz de heap 

 o' good like hearin' a real circus ban' a playin'. Land 

 alibe, honies ! I feel so spry alreddy seems like I'se 

 could do a caike walk dis yer minit." 



***** 



It was October. Everything looked cheerful at the 

 farm. The maples were dressed in dazzling red and 

 yellow ; heaps of red and yellow apples lay under the 

 orchard trees, and the house and barns wore a glisten- 

 ing new coat of yellow paint, with white trimmings 

 and green blinds. 



A deeper yellow shone from the fields where jolly 

 pumpkins seemed to play hide-and-seek behind the 

 corn stacks, which the children called wigwams when 

 they played Indian. Everything looked as thrifty as 

 if the outdoor season was beginning instead of nearly 

 at an end ; and well it might, for it had been many 

 years since the old farm held such a family. There 

 would be no closed blinds, leaf-choked paths, or snow- 

 drifts left to bury the porch, this winter. 



" Yes, the Chimney Swift was right," said the 

 Meadowlark in the old field, to the Song Sparrow who 

 was singing cheerfully in a barberry bush. " We shall 

 be better off than before these House People came ; 

 they have already begun to scatter food in the barn- 

 yard, though there are enough gleanings about to last 

 us citizens until snow conies. The village boys never 

 think of coming up here now to shoot, as they used 



