offering several unconscious arguments and suggestions to the
matter under discussion; lurching over on the greensward and

righting himself with a chuckle, kicking his bare feet about in
delight at the sunshine and groping for his toes with arms too

short to reach them, the movement involving an entire upsetting
of equilibrium followed by more chuckles.

Coming down the last of the stone steps, Sarah Ellen's mother
regarded the baby with interest and sympathy.

"Poor little mite!" she said; "that doesn't know what he's lost
and what's going to happen to him. Seems to me we might keep him

a spell till we're sure his father's deserted him for good. Want
to come to Aunt Sarah, baby?"

Jack-o'-lantern turned from Rebecca and Emma Jane and regarded
the kind face gravely; then he held out both his hands and Mrs.

Cobb, stooping, gathered him like a harvest. Being lifted into
her arms, he at once tore her spectacles from her nose and

laughed aloud. Taking them from him gently, she put them on
again, and set him in the cushioned rocking chair under the lilac

bushes beside the steps. Then she took one of his soft hands in
hers and patted it, and fluttered her fingers like birds before

his eyes, and snapped them like castanets, remembering all the
arts she had lavished upon "Sarah Ellen, aged seventeen months,"

years and years ago.
Motherless baby and babyless mother,

Bring them together to love one another.
Rebecca knew nothing of this couplet, but she saw clearly enough

that her case was won.
"The boy must be hungry; when was he fed last?" asked Mrs. Cobb.

"Just stay a second longer while I get him some morning's milk;
then you run home to your dinners and I'll speak to Mr. Cobb this

afternoon. Of course, we can keep the baby for a week or two till
we see what happens. Land! He ain't goin' to be any more trouble

than a wax doll! I guess he ain't been used to much attention,
and that kind's always the easiest to take care of."

At six o'clock that evening Rebecca and Emma Jane flew up the
hill and down the lane again, waving their hands to the dear old

couple who were waiting for them in the usual place, the back
piazza where they had sat so many summers in a blessed

companionship never marred by an unloving word.
"Where's Jacky?" called Rebecca breathlessly, her voice always

outrunning her feet.
"Go up to my chamber, both of you, if you want to see," smiled

Mrs. Cobb, "only don't wake him up."
The girls went softly up the stairs into Aunt Sarah's room.

There, in the turn-up bedstead that had been so long empty, slept
Jack-o'-lantern, in blissful unconsciousness of the doom he had

so lately escaped. His nightgown and pillow case were clean and
fragrant with lavender, but they were both as yellow as saffron,

for they had belonged to Sarah Ellen.
"I wish his mother could see him!" whispered Emma Jane.

"You can't tell; it's all puzzly about heaven, and perhaps she
does," said Rebecca, as they turned reluctantly from the

fascinating scene and stole down to the piazza.
It was a beautiful and a happy summer that year, and every day it

was filled with blissful plays and still more blissful duties. On
the Monday after Jack-o'-lantern's arrival in Edgewood Rebecca

founded the Riverboro Aunts Association. The Aunts were Rebecca,
Emma Jane, Alice Robinson, and Minnie Smellie, and each of the

first three promised to labor for and amuse the visiting baby for
two days a week, Minnie Smellie, who lived at some distance from

the Cobbs, making herself responsible for Saturday afternoons.
Minnie Smellie was not a general favorite among the Riverboro

girls, and it was only in an unprecedented burst of magnanimity
that they admitted her into the rites of fellowship, Rebecca

hugging herself secretly at the thought, that as Minnie gave only
the leisure time of one day a week, she could not be called a

"full" Aunt. There had been long and bitter feuds between the two
children during Rebecca's first summer in Riverboro, but since

Mrs. Smellie had told her daughter that one more quarrel would
invite a punishment so terrible that it could only be hinted at

vaguely, and Miss Miranda Sawyer had remarked that any niece of
hers who couldn't get along peaceable with the neighbors had

better go back to the seclusion of a farm where there weren't
any, hostilities had been veiled, and a suave and diplomatic

relationship had replaced the former one, which had been wholly
primitive, direct, and barbaric. Still, whenever Minnie Smellie,

flaxen-haired, pink-nosed, and ferret-eyed, indulged in fluent
conversation, Rebecca, remembering the old fairy story, could

always see toads hopping out of her mouth. It was really very
unpleasant, because Minnie could never see them herself; and what

was more amazing, Emma Jane perceived nothing of the sort, being
almost as blind, too, to the diamonds that fell continually from

Rebecca's lips; but Emma Jane's strong point was not her
imagination.

A shaky perambulator was found in Mrs. Perkins's wonderful attic;
shoes and stockings were furnished by Mrs. Robinson; Miss Jane

Sawyer knitted a blanket and some shirts; Thirza Meserve, though
too young for an aunt, coaxed from her mother some dresses and

nightgowns, and was presented with a green paper certificate
allowing her to wheel Jacky up and down the road for an hour

under the superintendence of a full Aunt. Each girl, under the
constitution of the association, could call Jacky "hers" for two

days in the week, and great, though friendly, was the rivalry
between them, as they washed, ironed, and sewed for their adored

nephew.
If Mrs. Cobb had not been the most amiable woman in the world she

might have had difficulty in managing the aunts, but she always
had Jacky to herself the earlier part of the day and after dusk

at night.
Meanwhile Jack-o'-lantern grew healthier and heartier and jollier

as the weeks slipped away. Uncle Jerry joined the little company
of worshipers and slaves, and one fear alone stirred in all their

hearts; not, as a sensible and practical person might imagine,
the fear that the recreant father might never return to claim his

child, but, on the contrary, that he MIGHT do so!
October came at length with its cheery days and frosty nights,

its glory of crimson leaves and its golden harvest of pumpkins
and ripened corn. Rebecca had been down by the Edgewood side of

the river and had come up across the pastures for a good-night
play with Jacky. Her literary labors had been somewhat

interrupted by the joys and responsibilities of vice-motherhood,
and the thought book was less frequently drawn from its hiding

place under the old haymow in the barn chamber.
Mrs. Cobb stood behind the screen door with her face pressed

against the wire netting, and Rebecca could see that she was
wiping her eyes.

All at once the child's heart gave one prophetic throb and then
stood still. She was like a harp that vibrated with every wind of

emotion, whether from another's grief or her own.
She looked down the lane, around the curve of the stone wall, red

with woodbine, the lane that would meet the stage road to the
station. There, just mounting the crown of the hill and about to

disappear on the other side, strode a stranger man, big and tall,
with a crop of reddish curly hair showing from under his straw

hat. A woman walked by his side, and perched on his shoulder,
wearing his most radiant and triumphant mien, as joyous in